Abuse Of Power In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

When you’re in a position of high authority, it comes with a great sum of power. Having a great deal of control can corrupt and can lead to the abuse of it. Abuse of power is using their power for their own benefit even if it may harm others. In the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, the effects of the abuse shown by Curley and Curley’s wife to the other characters will ultimately lead to a tragic end.
Curley is a small man who is the boss’s son and has a Napoleon complex and he tries to act larger than he is. He’s insecure around men that are more macho and bigger than him and is known to give men bigger than him grief. “He’s alla time picking scraps with big guys. Kind of like he’s mad at ‘em because he ain’t a big guy.

You seen little guys like that, ain’t you? Always scrappy?” (26) Curley was a top fighter and is known for being pretty “handy” and is able to pick fights with bigger men to assert his dominance. That made Lennie susceptible to the abuse by picking a fight with him later in the book. He’s self-entitled to point fingers at anyone. Curley complains about his wife being very high maintenance and hard to pin down and falsely accuses the other ranch workers that his wife is flirting around with them on the ranch, Slim finally confronts Curley, telling him, “If you can’t look after your own God damn wife, what you expect me to do about it? You lay offa me”, that was the last time Curley tried to accuse Slim of fooling with his wife. Curley abuses his power to his wife by going off to the brothel and not being at home with his wife. In the book, there’s no mention of both of them together, possibly suggesting that there’s a lack of communication between them, which is why his wife is even harder to control.
Although back then, women didn’t have as many rights as men did and were thought of property instead of human beings so Curley’s wife wasn’t very important to the male workers on the ranch at all.

This book depicts her as property of Curley’s because she is never given a name beside “Curley’s wife” or “Tart”. Curley’s wife was a woman who had aspiring dreams to be in movies and when that dream ended, she settled with marrying Curley. Curley’s wife shows abuse of power because since she is married to a person who is influential on the ranch, that makes her somewhat powerful, she uses her femininity and authority to manipulate others. She is unhappy with her marriage and is lonely so she goes out to the ranch to talk to the other guys, which gets Curley paranoid. When she is being forced to leave Crooks’s room, she retaliates by telling him, “Well, you keep your place then, nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.” When Candy tried to stand up for Crooks, she made sure they all knew their place, “Tell an’ be damned,” she cried, “Nobody’s listen to you an’ you know it. Nobody’s listen to you.” (79-80) There is a whole food chain in the ranch and Lennie, Candy and Crooks are at the bottom while Curley’s wife is at the top. On the other hand, she talks to Lennie because of his mental incapacity to know what’s wrong and right. He’s easier to allure in so she would have someone to talk to. Although Lennie wasn’t allowed to interact with

her.
The result of their misuse of power led to the unfortunate fate that both Curley and his wife faced. Curley’s wife may be lonely and needed someone to confide in, but Lennie knew to stay away from her and she was the one who kept making advances and that lead to her death. Curley wanted to show who was the authority figure and he may have lost his wife but he wanted to gain his authority and show who’s the boss by taking care of who was responsible for her death. Curley also lost that power when George killed Lennie himself. When power is and can’t be modestly used, then there will be inevitable consequences.