Crooks, in Of Mice and Men, is the old African American stable worker. He has been ostracized from the other ranch hands because of his race. Lennie and George talk to him at one point and they share their dream with him, but Crooks tells them that it will never happen. The major them is summed up by Crooks when he says: "S'pose you didn't have nobody. S'pose you couldn't go into the bunkhouse and play rummy 'cause you was black. How'd you like that? S'pose you had to sit out here an' read books. Sure you could play horseshoes till it got dark, but then you got to read books. Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody-to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya, I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick."
