She turned on him in scorn. “Listen, N*****,” she said. “You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?”
Crooks stared hopelessly at her, and then he sat down on his bunk and drew into himself.
She closed on him. “You know what I could do?”
Crooks seemed to grow smaller, and he pressed himself against the wall. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, you keep your place then, N*****. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.”
– John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men, Chapter 4. Curley’s wife viciously attacks Crooks and threatens to have him hung, after he tells her she does not belong in his bunk and should leave.