Curley's Wife Misunderstood Women

John Steinbeck is known to have composed many masterpieces in his vigorous career that often deal with one of the most basic and frightful human nature, loneliness. In his intricate work, Of Mice and Men, he tells a brilliantly spun tale of a group of people, whose hopes and dreams of belonging are shattered by their powerlessness. While each distinct character from this aforementioned group suffer on slightly different levels, the central core of their misery remains the same; a need for companionship. Among these lonesome individuals, Steinbeck develops Curley’s wife to symbolize the most extreme form of loneliness by framing her character as a misunderstood woman in the 1930’s, who is married to a truculent, inordinately prohibitive husband,

Curley.
First and foremost, Curley’s wife is purposely portrayed by Steinbeck to depict the epitome of outcasts, which he effectively conveys by establishing her as a misunderstood individual.

Even before she physically appears in front of our two main characters, George and Lennie, they develop a prejudice when Candy predisposes, “’Well – she got the eye’” (28). This instantly plants a preconception into George and Lennie that Curley’s wife is a woman of immoral standards, which leads to her failing to reconcile in an encounter that shortly follows. Trailing their defective and faulty conversation, George mutters, “’Jesus what a tramp’” (32), then goes on to say, “’I [have] seen [them] poison before, but I never seen no piece of jail bait worse than her. You leave her be’” (32). This misunderstanding causes George and Lennie (mostly George) to repudiate her, which only exacerbates her lonely status. Consequently, this misconception provides her with additional isolation when she

interacts with Lennie near the end of the novel. In Chapter 5, she attempts to set herself as pitiable to Lennie by voicing, “’Why can't I talk to you? I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely’" (86). However, she is rejected by Lennie as he firmly and repetitively states, “’Well, I [am not] supposed to talk to you or nothing’” (86). He mindlessly proceeds his attack by blurting, “’If George sees me [talking] to you he'll give me hell’” (87), which really displays how the prejudice formed at the beginning affected her negatively even to the fearfully terrible end. Her fate was sealed from the moment when the first accusation was spoken; all extra actions she took to reintroduce herself only resulted in further descent into her ultimate isolation.
Secondly, Steinbeck attempts to further detach Curley’s wife from others by setting her as a woman in the 1930s, where gender discrimination towards woman was dominant. He establishes this idea early on in the novella when he writes, “’He [isn’t] the first,’ said George. ‘There's plenty done that’” (28). This statement alone could create a lot of controversy today because it displays how all women of that time period were naturally viewed as “tarts” to some degree. It only helped boost the misunderstanding that Curley’s wife received, which most likely could have been evaded if she were a man. Due to the fact that she was a girl, it was easy for George and Lennie to accept Candy’s opinion that she had immoral standards. These stereotypes of the time most definitely contributed to her separation from those around her. Additionally, in her encounter with Crooks, Candy, and Lennie in Chapter 4, Crooks tells her, “’Maybe you better go along to your own house now. We don't want no trouble’” (77). While this may seem like Curley’s fault, it is mostly because she is a woman. Candy condemns Curley’s wife that she “’ [has a husband]’” (77) and that she “’ [has] no call [fooling around] with other guys,’” (77), which proves that women of that time period were not expected to talk to anyone other than their husbands. This is incredibly unfair since the whole idea that men can talk to whoever they want to regardless of marital status and women are stuck with one person is a specific discrimination that enforces loneliness onto women. Even more, she is the only woman introduced in the novella (other than the girl with the red dress that is mentioned to have existed prior to the beginning of the book). Naturally, it would seem solitary to be surrounded only by the opposite sex and have no one of your “kind” with you. Her situation that manifests due to her gender is similar to that of Crooks who feels isolated because he is the only African-American on the ranch. Her status as a woman chains her away from all others on the ranch and further augments the loneliness.
Lastly, Curley is the primary source and the most damning factor in Curley’s wife’s inescapable (except through death) solitude. From the beginning to the end, Curley’s pugnacious nature decimates every chance that Curley’s wife gets to maintain a social relationship. Even when Candy was making biased judgments and telling it to George and Lennie, Curley’s glove was what caused them to bring up the topic in the first place. Thus, we can conclude that, in a way, Curley contributed to Curley’s wife’s misunderstanding. Furthermore, in Chapter 4, Candy’s best choice of attack comes down to threatening her with Curley’s presence when he says, “’So maybe you better jus' scatter along now, [because] Curley maybe [isn’t going to] like his wife out in the barn with us 'bindle stiffs,’” (79). Right after, it states, “She looked from one face to another, and they were all closed against her” (79). Curley’s existence suppresses Curley’s wife from ever having or maintaining a relationship. Moreover, when Slim says, “’Well, you [aren’t trying] very hard. I [saw] him [going] in your house’" (32), the novella describes that Curley’s wife was “suddenly apprehensive” (32) and that “she hurried away” (32). She is scared that Curley will find out she is socializing and hurries home. It is an obvious indicator that Curley is the main obstacle at hand and is the main cause of his wife’s separation from others. Additionally, she aggressively puts forth, “’ Sure I [have a husband]. You all seen him. Swell guy, [isn’t] he?’” (78), and later in the novella goes on to sullenly moan, “I [don’t] like Curley” (89). This statement unveils even talk her ultimate loneliness, she can’t to the one person that she is stuck with. Curley, with all who he is, creates the greatest environment for Curley’s wife to be the most terribly isolated person.
Overall, Steinbeck forces absolute isolation onto Curley’s wife, thus creating her to manifest the most extreme form of loneliness as an abject woman in the 1930’s, who’s married to a belligerent husband, and where everyone has a preconception of her as a woman of immoral standards.

In this tale of hopes, dreams, and loneliness, Steinbeck seems to emphasize loneliness the most in all of the characters, however, none come close to the repudiation that Curley’s wife had received up until the very end. One can suppose that at one point or another, all of us will feel lonely, rejected, and even forsaken, but it’s unlikely any form of solitude will be on par with what Curley’s wife went through. There is an underlying theme that seems to appear on the page after the novella is closed; human beings are naturally lonely, however, if you can find that you belong and can cherish others’ existences, you will be exempt from one of the most heartbreaking pain of isolation. It gives us a warm feeling, knowing that we own and can provide what all of these characters longed for throughout the entire novella, companionship. Curley’s wife had no one to share her dreams with and it reminds us that people must never have less than one friend that hold our dreams as if it were

theirs.