Section 4 OMAM

   I was very intrigued by this section. We got to meet Crooks for the first time and there was a heated argument between Candy and Curley's wife. This whole section took place in Crooks's room. No one had ever been into his room until Lennie just showed up. When we first met Crooks he came off as a bit of a recluse and wasn't necessarily the nicest man. He was surprised when Lennie came but, at the same time he wanted people out of his room. He claimed, "This here's my room. Nobody got any right in here but me." I find it kind of interesting how Crooks always brings up that they have no right. I believe he makes statements that way because he also believes they have no right to discriminate black people just because of the color of their skin. Crooks and Lennie had a long conversation and Crooks confused and angered Lennie filling his head with thoughts that George might not come back. It turns out Crooks was actually a lonely man who just wanted company but had a hard way of showing it.

  I always knew the men on the ranch didn't like Curley's wife but, I did not expect Candy to speak up against her. In doing so, we the readers got a little more insight on the character Candy. "He said accusingly, 'You gotta husban'. You got no call foolin' aroun' with other guys causin' trouble.'" He also said, “I had enough,” he said angrily. “You ain’t wanted here. We told you you ain’t. An’ I tell ya, you got floozy idears about what us guys amounts to. You ain’t got sense enough in that chicken head to even see that we ain’t stiffs. S’pose you get us canned. S’pose you do. You think we’ll hit the highway an’ look for another lousy two-bit job like this. You don’t know that we got our own ranch to go to, an’ our own house. We ain’t got to stay here. We gotta house and chickens an’ fruit trees an’ a place a hunderd time prettier than this. An’ we got fren’s, that’s what we got. Maybe there was a time when we was scared of gettin’ canned, but we ain’t no more. We got our own lan’, and it’s ours, an’ we c’n go to it.” Candy was getting so fed up with Curley’s wife constantly tagging along and trying to seduce other workers on the ranch acting like they were nothing. I have to admit, I enjoyed seeing this side of Candy. He finally just let go of his anger and said what he felt. Candy also knew when to calm down and act rationally. He acted more rationally when he was defended Lennie. He spoke up for Lennie many times during this fight because he knew Curley’s wife was trying to get Lennie to admit he crushed Curley’s hand. Since George was not around, Candy kind of took over the role of a father by standing up for Lennie. In a sense, this fight really showed two new sides of Candy, the angry side, and the protective side.