Who is Crooks? Describe him.

In Chapter Four, this contrast becomes still more marked. Indeed, as Crooks, Candy and Lennie - the three mentally or physically impaired "outcasts" of the farm - discuss their dream of living "of the fat of the land" one can sense a strong whiff of socialism. For a moment, they imagine a life of freedom from prejudice and racism, in which each man works for "just his keep" regardless of color or disability (84).

One might look at Crooks' description of his past - when he had a farm of his own (81) - as a socialist "utopian past" from which the inequalities of capitalism have torn the worker. One might even consider George a kind of middle-class revolutionary leading the proletariat from their downtrodden position to a reunion with the natural cycles of labor. Of course, one ought to keep in mind that their revolution remains very small-scale - they desire merely to alter their own lives, not the lives of humanity at large - and nebulous. By the chapter's end, Crooks has utterly abandoned his dream of farm life.