Specifically, in chapter four of Of Mice and
Men, Curley's wife threatens Crook with her ability to tell white men that
he, a black man, did something sexually to her. It isn't directly stated as such, but
it is definitely implied.
Crooks stands up to her and is
immediately put back in his place by her. She
says:
She
turned on him in scorn. "Listen, Nigger," she said. "You know what I can do to you if
you open your trap?"
And
again:
She
closed on him. "You know what I could
do?"
Crooks
reacts:
Crooks
seemed to grow smaller, and he pressed himself against the wall. "Yes,
ma'am."
And she finishes him
off:
"Well,
you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain't
even funny."
Her use of the
perjorative that ignorant whites use for blacks, and her reference to lynching, makes
her meaning clear--all she has to do is say Crooks tried something sexual with her, and
he would be hanged. He is, figuratively speaking, put back into the place society keeps
him in.
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