Steinbeck presents Curley’s wife as an unhappy woman who is married to the boss’s son; essentially she is just a “trophy wife”, there to make other men jealous. “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck is set during the Depression of the nineteen thirties. Curley’s wife is an important minor character, who is alternately presented as a victim and as danger to the men on the ranch. The title is based on a poem by Robert Burns which is about a mouse whose nest is destroyed in a similar way to the plot where people’s dreams are destroyed. The tragic novel is set in the southern state of California and explores the lives of ranch workers and the hardships they face. The dialogue in the story is Californian working class dialect representing the background of the men. Curley’s wife highlights the two main themes in the novel dreams, and loneliness. As the only woman on the ranch she is objectified by the men who exhibit the casual sexism of the time. Attitudes towards women were very much tied up with their roles as wives and mothers, or as prostitutes. She did not fit the role of mother and wife because of her appearance and dress, so the men stereotyped her as the latter. There were certain expectations to which she didn’t conform. Her flirtatiousness is designed to get the men’s attention because she has no one to talk to but they only see it as a danger which could get them fired. She only does it because she is lonely; she is shown to be a victim of male prejudice and experiences an even more acute loneliness than that of the men.
Steinbeck constructs an image in the reader’s minds about Curley’s wife before we meet her. He forewarns the reader when Candy warns George about Curley’s wife who is a subject of the men’s gossip. He descri...
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.... Throughout the novel it seems that the other characters seem to misunderstand her. She was not intended to be a “floozy” but to be pitied and liked. He discusses her tough background in detail. Steinbeck invokes sympathy from the reader and well as wants us to understand that it was not only men who were affected by the great depression. It seems that she married Curley to get away from her life and to realise her dream. It did not happen. Instead she destroys Lennie and Georges dream. Steinbeck may have used her merely to represent women of the time. However she appears to highlight the lives of the men since she is both a danger to them and their victim. The novel ends how it started, the dream being told to Lennie. George and Lennie end up in the same place they began to confirm the cyclical nature of the book and to reinforce the insurmountable American dream.
Her resistive attitude was made apparent when she was first introduced in the novella as Curley’s wife. In order to emphasise Curley’s wife’s inadequacy, Steinbeck doesn’t give her a name. As a victim of this lack of authority, she finds someone to bully and is presented as a powerful and intimidating person. Alongside many other Americans of the time, Curley's wife also had an American dream. Fear prevented her trying, as she knew if she failed, she would be left with nothing. Candy, a swamper, introduced her. Initially, she was mentioned in rumours which subtly hints at the idea that she had developed a bad reputation over time, which gives the reader opinions and biased views on Curley's wife even before she enters. Curley’s wife had the right to articulate her opinion, in fact she had more rights than Eva Smith, and despite the fact her husband was the boss, she still found that she was unable to speak. Presumably, the reason for this being the absence of an involved father figure. In fact the only man she could get close to ‘promised’ her to put her in the
Curley’s Wife in ‘Of Mice and Men’ is used cleverly by Steinbeck to create sympathy amid the reader but also to represent the position of women in 1930s America. Through an intelligently designed pattern of events in the book, we feel varying amounts of sympathy for Curley’s Wife and thus unconsciously acquire information regarding the issues women had to face in the 1930s. In this essay I will evaluate the extent that Steinbeck presents Curley’s Wife as a sympathetic character and its relation to 1930s America.
Curley's Wife in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. ‘Of Mice and Men’ was originally a novel by John Steinback which was written in 1937. It was also made into a film in 1939, and then later. in 1992. It is a tale of the friendship between two men, George and Lennie, who has travelled to work on a ranch together and how their friendship is put to the test.
Of Mice and Men is novel that was written by John Steinbeck that describes the journey of George, and his mentally disabled friend, Lennie, as they travel and work together on a ranch in California. The story of Of Mice and Men accounts for the experience of George and Lennie as they encounter different people on the ranch who live in solitude, such as Crooks the negro stable buck, and the wife of the boss’s son, Curley. Crooks the stable buck is always alone because he is black, and during the time period of which the novel takes place, people with colored skin were discriminated and excluded from white social activities. Curley’s wife is alone most of the time because most of the men on ranch stay away
The first impression the reader get´s of Curley´s wife is definitely not a good one. She walks into the scene as if she owned the place, like a person who is confident of herself and well aware of their sexual appeal. The reader can identify that she is not afraid to use her sexual appeal as a weapon to her advantage. “Nobody can blame a person for looking.” She tells to Lennie as soon as she feels his look posed on her body. This is the first words she utters in her first encounter with Lennie. With judgment the reader can infer that she is a person fool of herself and self-centered. These thoughts later get confirmed when the workers call her a “tart”. The reader can now see how the workers behave around her and how they react to the thought of her. It´s not hard to quickly judge her and, like the workers, classify her as a tart and associated her with trouble.
In this essay I am going to examine whether Curley's wife is a tart or
The character of Curley’s Wife is very hard to unravel, as throughout the book, Steinbeck’s representation of women through characters such as George and Candy, is very harsh. This is because the sociological opinion at that time was that they were either, mothers, sisters, or prostitutes, as the audience soon see, George and other ranch workers refer to her as “bitch” “loo loo” and “tramp”. There were also a growing number of prostitutes during the Great Depression period, as they would offload their services to those whom were able to pay and have some decent income during the Depression. Other aspects that may make Curley’s Wife seem like a tart, is Curley’s “Glove Fulla’ Vaseline”. Curley literally keeps a glove full of Vaseline, in order to keep his hand soft, possibly for a sexual act. Curley boasts to Candy that the hand is for his wife, which tells us that she gives him consent to do these acts to her, and also, Curley’s nerve to inform fellow workers about his glove shows that he believes that his own wife is a tart, which is very controversial today, but back then, women were seen as nothing more than possessions, yours to do what you will. George informs Lennie to avoid Curley’s Wife at all costs, and not to talk to her, because of her promiscuous behaviour, he believes t...
Curley’s wife is depicted as a flamboyant woman whose appearance deflects her cunning nature. Following the first time she encountered Lennie and George, the migrant workers during the Great Depression, Lennie quickly admits her
Curley’s wife represents her broken dreams of becoming an actress. Lennie and George represent a dream in progress, it is uncertain if their plans will work out as intended or plummet before takeoff, even Crooks and Candy see the appeal in Lennie and George’s fantasy and join them. The dream in progress gives hope to Lennie and George and continued to even after losing previous jobs. Curley’s wife is constantly restricted, she married Curley so that she would no longer be alone but now is in the same state as before, just on a ranch of men. She tries to talk to the other men but she is then seen as "jail bait" and avoided, making her even lonelier. Her dream of being an actress has failed because she chose a quick way out and married Curley. She is now living in her failure and has no longer a dream to aim for. Perhaps the most important part of the story is the the part in which Lennie has accidentally killed the puppy given to him by Slim, and is grieving over him in the barn, “This ain’t no bad thing like I got to go hide in the brush. Oh! no. This ain’t. I’ll tell George I foun’ it dead.” He unburied the puppy and inspected it, and he stroked it from ears to tail. He went on sorrowfully, “But he’ll know. George always knows. He’ll say, ‘You done it. Don’t try to put nothing over on me.’ An’ he’ll say, ‘Now jus’ for that you don’t get to tend no rabbits!” (Steinbeck, 85) He feels powerless to his own strength, he believes that he will never achieve his dream because of his mistake. George and the other men are out once again and the only person who comes to his emotional aid is none other than Curley’s wife. “Don’t you worry about talkin’ to me. Listen to the guys yell out there. They got four dollars bet in that tenement. None of them ain’t gonna leave till it’s over.” “If George sees me talkin’ to you he’ll give me hell,” Lennie said cautiously.” (Steinbeck, 85) He
All throughout Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck explores how isolation through sexism and racism can cause a person to crave attention. He helps the reader to understand this by depicting both Curley’s Wife and Crooks, who were minorities on the farm, as extremely needy for attention
Curley’s wife is a complex, main character in John Steinbeck’s novella, “Of Mice and Men”. She is introduced as an insignificant secondary character, but evidently posses the importance of causing the end of the novella. Despite the weight of her role, her value is hindered because of the culture towards women in the 1930s. Steinbeck uses imagery, foreshadowing, and metaphors to show loneliness analyzed through a Feminist Lens.
Curley’s wife’s femininity may be seen as her greatest weakness or flaw to most, but she rapidly discovers that it is also her only weapon on the ranch and learns to use it to her advantage. Therefore, she puts up an alluring and sultry front in an attempt to receive attention, because she is aware that none of the men on the farm respect her because of her position as a woman. The men's blatant lack of respect for her belittles the miniscule amount of power she has acquired
Steinbeck expresses the theme of loneliness in the character of Candy. Candy is lonely because his is missing half an arm. Candy?s disability separates him from society, an example of Curley being set aside is when everybody else goes to town he is left in the barn with Crooks, Lennie, and Curley?s wife. Candy?s only friendship was with his old, smelly dog. Candy?s dog was a symbol of himself (old, and useless). When Carlson kills Candy?s dog he kills Candy on the inside as well.
...r say anything. So she is stuck at a ranch where all the members there avoid her because she is trouble and can’t even run away because of her being a female in the early 1900’s made it almost impossible to survive on her own. She dresses a certain way to live out the American Dream the only way she can. She doesn’t dress that way to show off her body, she wants to feel like she is living her dream. She realizes that she is good looking and she uses that to her advantage to talk to some of the people at the ranch like Lennie. The only way she got to talk to Lennie was by letting him touch her hair. Steinbeck let Curley’s Wife die in such a peaceful way; I didn’t even realize she was dead until I read over the section multiple times. He left her there in the barn describing her beauty, showing the reader through Curley’s Wife that even the worst of us have humanity.
In the Steinbeck novel ‘Of Mice and Men’, he introduces us to the character of Curley’s wife. She could be interpreted as a mis-fitting character in the novel, as no one relaters to her. This essay will go on to examine the character of Curley’s wife and how characters perceive her and how this influences the readers interpretation of her.