George had to speak for Leonie and do a lot of babysitting and thinking for him also. Crooks, the Negro stickleback, had been injured when a horse kicked him. He had a hard time walking around because his back was hunched over and was very sore. With being a “Niger”, the boss had a room just for him in the barn. Candy, the swamped, is an old man who had his hand injured in an accident on the ranch, making him partially handicapped. This quote shows how Candy has become useless like his dog “the best damn sheep-dog I ever seen”.
Curler’s wife is a young, flirty lady who is ignored by many of the ranchers cause if they talk to her, they would get into trouble with Curler. Over the course of the novel, there is a lot of sexual prejudice towards Curler’s Wife. With the fact that she lived on a ranch where the majority of people were men, she tended to get very lonely. The quote from George “Ranch with a bunch of guys on it into no place for a girl” is an example of the prejudice towards Curler’s wife. Another part of the sexual prejudice towards her is the fact that none of the ranch hands will talk to her. Overall the ranch hands don’t trust nor understand her.
Some of the sexual prejudice she experienced as her fault, she scared the ranch hands with her femininity but she wasn’t really a tart, she just craved attention that she didn’t get from Curler. Being ignored by both the ranch hands and Curler she ended up very lonely, the one thing she wanted most was to escape. When all things are considered, Leonie, Crooks, Candy, and Curler’s wife are all left out due to a disability or for being a possible wick to start a fire. Leonie has a mental disability that slows him down some on his thinking process. Nobody wanted Leonie to go into town because he might do something stupid.
Crooks and Candy both have a physical disability. With their disabilities, the other ranchers see them as useless because Candy has no hand, and Crooks has a hunched back. The ranchers also exclude Crooks because he is a “Niger” and at that time period, “naggers” were still considered to be trash, even though slavery had been abolished. Curler’s wife is left out because of the fact that she is very flirty and if she was to come along, Curler would be very irate. Crooks, Candy, and Curler’s wife all suffer from discrimination and prejudice which creates loneliness and isolation for each one of them.
They learn to deal with their loneliness by admiring Leonie and George’s friendship. Crooks experiences isolation due to the fact that the society he resided in was racist. “A guy goes nuts if he into got nobody. Don’t matter no difference who the guy is, longs he you. Tell way a guy gets too lonely an he gets sick” was the way Crooks found a personal connection with Leonie by letting him know he understands how he feels when George is gone. Another quote “Cause I’m black, they play cards in there but I can’t play because I’m black. They say I stink.
Well I tell you, all of you stink to me” shows that Crooks would do anything to be accepted, but because of his color he has to refrain from the urge. Throughout the story, there is a lot of discrimination and prejudice. Leonie, Crooks, Candy, and Curler’s wife all deal with getting left out while living their lives. Their similarities really show when they aren’t able to go places and are excluded. At times when they were excluded, they came to one another to cope with their loneliness. Each one of them wanted someone to care about them, to own their own place, and to belong somewhere.
