Curley's Wife Isolation

Anshul Joshi

Ms. Fox

Period 5 English

23 November 2014

Extreme isolation in the form of solitary confinement is known to have devastating effects on the mind, having a strong effect on how people treat others. Unfortunately, this sense of loneliness can often manifest in negativity towards others. In Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men, characters often bring down others as a result of their own isolation. This isolation results in a man using his power to unfairly hurt his workers, a discriminated against worker taking advantage of a mentally-disabled man, and a dissatisfied woman cruelly insulting a lower class worker.

Curley is the boss’s son on the ranch, and as a result, he is given a lot of power and wealth. Curley finds himself isolated

Curley’s wife is the only woman who is revealed to be living on the ranch. She has no one who wants to talk to her, including Curley, who controls her every move. Curley’s wife’s gender and marriage with Curley isolates her from the other people on the ranch, and she takes out her frustration from this loneliness on Crooks. Curley’s wife is depicted in a very feminine way with “full, rouged lips and wide spaced eyes, heavily made-up” to distinguish her from everyone else on the ranch. However, this appearance is incongruous with her true emotions and is an attempt to mask her loneliness. As the only woman on the ranch, she is regarded as separate as opposed to an equal to the men on the ranch. Throughout the novella she is defined as a possession of Curley’s which is why she is never actually referred to by her actual name but rather as “Curley’s wife”. Friendless, she is seen throughout the novella looking for people to talk to under the pretense of “looking for Curley”(31). However, as the men are afraid of getting in trouble with Curley, they all turn her away. She confesses to Lennie, “I get lonely… You can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad’”(87). When Curley’s wife approaches Crooks after all the able men go to town, he turns her away saying that she “got no rights comin’ in a colored man’s room”(80). After years of being turned away by the working

This pattern is not only exclusive to the strong and the weak, such as Curley and the farmhands, but also to the weak and the even weaker, shown by Crooks and Lennie as well as by Curley’s wife and Crooks. Steinbeck’s portrayal of this negativity stemming from isolation is a pessimistic one, showing how helpless and cruel one can become without company. However, it is important to notice that this isolation is not always wrought upon oneself, like Curley, but is often driven by segregation and mistreatment by others, as shown by Crooks and Curley’s wife. Similarly, Steinbeck realizes that society needs to be more accepting of people, for not doing so only results in a vicious cycle of isolation and even more