In John Steinbeck's acclaimed novel Of Mice and Men, the main question that really drives and provokes the most thought is: what does it mean to be part of a community or a society? Steinbeck's simple answer to this high-level question is this: being part of a community or society means having someone who cares about you. This response is shown in many examples scattered throughout the pages of the book, and appears to be the main reason why certain characters are present in the book. The first characters that Steinbeck uses to support his answer are Curley and his wife. . Curley is always very protective of his wife and becomes very aggressive with those who seem interested in his wife in any way. Although Curley consistently acts protective of his wife, the character's relationship seems stressed and unloving. Curley's wife is always hanging around the ranch, pretending to look for her husband, but really just looking for an excuse to talk to other people. Curley, on the other hand, spends all his time looking for his wife, and is always suspicious that she is cheating on him. In fact, Curley's wife says this to Lennie as he recounts his life story: “I've never told anyone this before. Maybe I should do it. I don't like Curley. He's not a good guy." (89) Curley's wife admitting this to a man so obviously unintelligent that he really won't understand, instead of trying to talk to someone who can actually help her, really shows how desperate she is to communicate her feelings to anyone other than her husband. Curley's wife is unable to form a sense of community because she has no one to care for her, no family nearby, a husband she doesn't like, and a group of ranch hands who ostracize her because they are afraid of making Curley angry. Because of this she becomes so desperate that she seeks someone who will not ignore her, even though she knows the man she is talking to cannot understand. Another example of Steinbeck's thoughts on the community is Crooks. Crooks is an African American man who works as a stable boy on the ranch. Since Crooks is black and the rest of the ranchers are white, he doesn't sleep in the dormitory. Crooks instead lives alone in a small room attached to the stables his things.