If I am analysing how Steinbeck presents Crooks in Of Mice and Men, what could be some potential topics upon which to focus?

I think that Steinbeck's depiction of Crooks allows many
different elements upon which one could write.  For me, one of the most stunning
elements is how Steinbeck was able to draw out Crooks' character in the fourth chapter
of the novella.  It would be very basic for Steinbeck to only flesh out the idea that
Crooks endures marginalization on both racial and socio- economic levels.  Steinbeck
does accomplish this, but there is much more to it.  In the section, Steinbeck is able
to create a hunger in Crooks, and convey it to the reader.  There is a hunger in Crooks
for company.  His initial torment of Lennie is to bring out this condition of isolation
and alienation in the world that plagues him.  Yet, Steinbeck's characterization of
Crooks takes on new dimensions when he is able to present him as one who is initially
hesitant and apprehensive to engage in dreaming, but still someone who seeks to believe
in something beyond what is.  His embrace of the dream that Lennie and Candy share is
small, and very minor.  Yet, it is almost a validation of the power of hope even in the
most dire of circumstances.  It lasts for almost a page or two, until Curley's wife
enters and strikes with poison to bring out Crooks' own condition in the world as one
where dreams are impossible to hold for more than a moment.  When Crooks tells Candy at
the end of the section that he wants to withdraw his initial acceptance of such a
vision, and he is left to rub ointment in the silence and loneliness of his room, it is
a statement that hits at the reader with a force.  In the end, Crooks becomes a
character that we, as the reader, examine as both mirror and looking glass.  At what
point do we become victim of our worlds and at what point do we seek to transcend it? 
The answer feeds a larger question of whether or not it is foolish to feed the desire to
see what should be as opposed to what is.  I think that examining how Crooks enhances
the theme of dreams and reality is something that can be explored in great depth in this
section of the novella.