Curley's Wife Character Analysis Essay

'Of Mice and Men' is based around two main themes; loneliness, and the fragility of dreams. Each main character connects with both of these themes at some stage throughout the novel. Curley's wife is no exception to this. At the beginning of the novel the reader views her as an unpleasant, naive and troublesome character. However, as the novel progresses, the reader is gradually exposed to another side of Curley's wife, one that suggests she is merely a

The next time Steinbeck presents Curleys wife is in her conversation with Lennie, Candy and Crooks. In this extract we see how Curleys wife clearly enjoys having power over others and because she is the only girl on the ranch she is prone to discrimination by being made to feel like one of Curleys possessions. We first get

By looking more closely at the story, one can see that Curley’s wife is also a metaphor which symbolizes the way which other people looked upon women in the society of the 1930’s. Curley’s wife represents a whole marginalized group in the American society at that time. In the novel, characters are never fully developed, but instead appear as outlines or symbols of real people. Candy, Crooks, and Curley's wife represent the discriminated groups of age, race, and sex. Curley’s wife has been given an overall picture in the eyes of George and Lennie before they even meet her, by Candy. The picture Candy paints about her hints at how she tends to give all the men on the ranch ‘the eye’. Nobody really knows Curley’s wife because nobody ever talks to her and listens to what she really has to say. Curley’s wife wants attention. She wants people to notice her. She is the only woman on the ranch out of all the men. She wears fancy clothes and nice make up to make her look beautiful and

Curley’s Wife may be misinterpreted by most of the other workers at the same time, as there are times when she seems to snap out of the flirtatious character, and into the vulnerable human being persona. This character is introduced when she is confiding in Lennie about her ambition to be a Movie Star, but these attempts are being blocked by Curley. "Coulda been in the movies, and had nice clothes". This shows she want’s recognition She shows a very vulnerable and human character to us all when she goes as far as to tell Lennie her true feelings about Curley , “a nasty man”. This drives us away from the impression of Curley’s wife that she’s a vixen who sports fancy red shoes. This aspect of Curley’s Wife’s character tells us that she is a victim not of her actions, but of the stereotypical image of women. Also she's unnamed in the novel, possibly to add to her sense of loneliness or to show the insignificant role women played in that time/era in the eyes of males

Curley’s wife constantly complains how lonely she is as Curley is not around most of the time. This drives her to wander about the ranch talking to other men and questioning them about Curley's whereabouts. As most of the men are in town, Curley’s wife wanders to the barn where Candy, Crooks, and Lennie are currently located. The men question why she is there and see her as a nuisance. But, she stays and discusses her struggles with loneliness. “‘I get lonely,’ she said, ‘You can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley, else he gets mad. How’d you like not to talk to nobody’” (Steinbeck 87). In other words, Curley’s wife is left alone by Curley so much that she feels the need to talk to anybody that she finds. This is why she wanders about the ranch all day and talks to any men she can find. This demonstrates how women were treated during this time; they were thought to be unimportant and were often left alone by their spouses. Curley’s wife did not have a name, which shows how unimportant she really is. Women were thought to be of no use, leaving them to not have the ability to achieve the American dream.

The daughter in law of the ranch’s owner, which we will refer as Curley’s wife from now on, was killed instantly by a fatal injury to the neck caused by a retarded worker, Lennie. Born with talents of acting, Curley’s wife was invited to an audition by a famous Hollywood director at the age of eighteen. Unfortunately, her mother turned down the audition for her, due to unclear reasons. She then married to Curley, the son of the ranch’s owner, and lived on the ranch until her death. From the workers on the ranch, we learned that Curley’s wife was very lonely

offer her and also Candy. I think that is she did not marry Curley she

All she really wants to do is to talk to someone. The reason she married Curley in the first place was because she wanted to get away from her mother. When she was younger she had a chance to make it big, but because she was too young she thought her mother took away the letters. She married Curley a while later, and she feels lonely because she is the only women on the ranch. “‘ Think I like to stick in that house alla time?’”, stated Curley’s wife (77). Curley expects that she stays home and acts like a trophy wife. This shows that she was discriminated against because of her gender. The rest of the guys don’t want to talk to her because they don’t want to risk Curley getting mad at them. Because she is never talked to, this leads to her seeking out people just to get a little attention. People at the ranch have treated her with disrespect in some shape or form. “‘Jesus, what a tramp’”, stated George about Curley’s wife. Many of the other guys called her mean names behind her back or even to her face. All of these reasons add up to show that she is discriminated against because of her

Curley wife has a strong role in the novel but as the reader proceeds towards the end of the novel, they examine a change in her character. Before we are introduced to her she is described by Candy. “I think Curley’s married…….. a tart”. By Candy saying that statement proves that Curley’s wife does not have a good reputation on the ranch.

In Of Mice and Men, Curley’s wife is the only woman present in the novella. She is a beautiful woman of elegant clothing, a face of flawless makeup and done-up hair. Throughout the novella she is only referred to as “Curley’s wife”. She is never given a name and is only recognized by the role she plays- being a wife. In an encounter with Lennie, Candy and Crooks, Curley’s wife shares her lifelong dream for the first time with anyone.

Curley likes to think he owns his wife and that he should tell her what she can and can't do and consequently this is what makes her another very lonely character. If she tries to talk to the ranchmen they ignore her, because they fear Curley and she has no female friends so she is very isolated. His wife is never given a name in the book and is constantly referred to as "Curleys wife"; this for me makes an important and bold statement to the reader. Steinbeck shows how lonely she is, as she is never given a name it shows that no one thinks of her as a friend, but more of an object. She shouldn't really be as lonely as she is because she has a husband, but still she has no real friends. She has no real grip on life and lives in two completely different worlds. In reality she lives in an old ranch surrounded by ranchmen with no friends or companions to communicate with. However she longs and truly believes she can be a film star. She once told Lennie

Curley’s wife is seen as a tramp because she flirts with every person on the ranch to make her husband jealous. Because of this every on the ranch believes that she just wants to cause trouble. Although everyone believes that she is like that, she is actually desperately lonely on the inside.

Being the only woman on the ranch, living amid men who avoid Curley’s wife like the plague who claim her to be “a tart” and “a tramp” (Steinbeck 50) is a reason to why Curley’s wife is discontent with the life she is living. As a result of being the only female on the ranch, Curley’s wife is quite lonesome, which is conveyed through the rhetorical questions she posed to the trio of Crooks, Candy, and Lennie, making it clear that she doesn’t want to be confined within her home constantly and that she found pleasure in having someone to talk to every so often (Steinbeck 77). To add to Curley’s wife’s loneliness, on any occasion when she left the restricted extent of her house, she presented herself to others in a coquettish way, and her husband,

In the novel Curley’s wife does not really make any direct contact with George. She responds to Candy by saying no one ever listens to her, “Tell an’ be damned … Nobody’d listen to you an’ you know it” (Steinbeck 81). She says this to Candy because Candy told Curley’s wife that she was framing Crooks. Curley’s wife was planning on getting Crooks in a lot of trouble. As quoted in the novel “Listen, Nigger.”

Analyze the character of Curley’s wife. Curley’s wife was not a main character but a character in