Of Mice and Men part 4
Crooks and racism: answers
Subject:
English
Age groups:
11-14, 15-16
Topic:
Of Mice and Men
EAL Nexus – free downloadable teaching materials https://eal.britishcouncil.org/
© Bell Educational Trust 2016
This resource was originally developed by S Matzak and has been adapted for EAL Nexus. Character
illustrations by J de Podesta.
The character of Crooks and racism in the USA
Novelists often use individual characters to tell us about the
conditions under which a larger group of people live. The
character of Crooks in Of Mice and Men tells us about the life of
black people in the USA in the 1930s.
Look up the following words and insert them in the text on the
following page that explores this in more detail.
abolition
commonly accepted
denial
illustrates
intend
is disillusioned
is referred to
prevailed
prevalent
prides
segregation
states
strikes
underlines
EAL Nexus – free downloadable teaching materials https://eal.britishcouncil.org/
© Bell Educational Trust 2016
The character of Crooks and racism in the USA
Fill in the words from the list above:
The character of Crooks illustrates racism in the USA in the 1930s.
Although racism has always been more prevalent in the American
Deep South1 than in California, where the novel is set, it was
commonly accepted all over the USA that black Americans did not
have the same rights as whites.
This strikes us as particularly unfair in a country like America that
prides itself on being a nation of immigrants. The Declaration of
Independence of 1776 states that everybody is considered to be
‘created equal’ and has ‘certain unalienable Rights’ such as ‘Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’. It is a contradiction that
despite these guaranteed rights, slavery prevailed in the USA until
1863 and former slaves and their descendents were treated as
second class citizens for more than a hundred years after the
abolition of slavery.
Racism was expressed through segregation (e.g. black Americans
had to use separate waiting rooms at train stations and separate
toilets), and also through the denial of education and of
constitutional rights such as the right to vote.
Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Texas,
Arkansas, Tennessee and other states.
1
EAL Nexus – free downloadable teaching materials https://eal.britishcouncil.org/
© Bell Educational Trust 2016
Crooks is not allowed to stay in the bunk house and is referred to
as ‘the nigger’ or ‘negro’ by the other workers. Even though not all
of them intend to offend him, this means that he is defined by the
colour of his skin and not his personal name or his character. Being
literate and possessing a dictionary and a copy of the California
civil code underlines that Crooks is interested in and informed
about legal rights. He sees the injustice around him and is
disillusioned. This explains why he is cynical about other people’s
dreams.
EAL Nexus – free downloadable teaching materials https://eal.britishcouncil.org/
© Bell Educational Trust 2016
Vocabulary builder
The following list contains words that are from the same family as
the words on the previous sheet. They are linked together
because they come from the same root, but are different parts of
speech, e.g. as a noun instead of a verb.
 Add in the middle column what part of speech the words in
this list are. You should find six nouns, three verbs, one past
participle of a verb and two adjectives.
 In the right-hand column, write the word from the text about
Crooks and racism that is from the same word family.
segregate
verb
segregation
deny
verb
denial
intention
noun
intend
proud
adjective
prides
common
adjective
commonly
acceptance
noun
accepted
disillusionment
noun
is disillusioned
illustration
noun
illustrates
past participle
strikes
abolish
verb
abolition
prevalence
noun
prevalent
reference
noun
is referred to
struck
EAL Nexus – free downloadable teaching materials https://eal.britishcouncil.org/
© Bell Educational Trust 2016