Curley's Wife in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men Essay

Humans are responsible for their own actions, and the characters Of Mice and Men are no exception. In Steinbeck's novel, Curley’s wife’s actions result in her tragic death. She faces this situation when she denies the warnings she is given in the first place. Therefore, Lennie, or anyone else for that matter, can not be responsible for her death. Curley’s wife is the only one to blame because she is warned to stay away in the first place, has knowledge of Lennie’s strength, and still allows Lennie to pet her hair even after seeing the result of him petting the puppy.

Curley is smaller man and a recently wed man to an attractive young lady not to mention the son to The Boss in “Of Mice and Men” by Joseph Steinbeck. In an attempt to cover up his insecurity with both he makes a cover comprised of his bravado and aggressive nature as seen in the book. This is quite clear as he has an overwhelming drive to prove he is better than others both in status and strength.

Curley is one of ‘Of Mice and Men’s’ major characters. Although he does not appear to hold a central role, he is very important in other respects. The first of these is the way in which he treats George and Lennie, and the ranch workers in general on the ranch. Curley is the boss’ son. Therefore he acts like he is the boss himself. He orders the others around, and, although it is true that he does hold some power on the ranch, he does not hold any respect from the workers. He is nasty towards them, treating as though they are them below him, and often trying to pick fights.

Steinbeck's novel 'Of Mice and Men' explores the everyday lives of migrant workers during the Great Depression. In this era, American men were forced to leave their families and become 'drifters'. These were people who didn't have a fixed job and continually moved from place to place.

Candy: He earned this by being a kind “sweet” old man. So the most appropriate thing to call him was candy.

to Crooks' door when all the men are in town on Saturday night we realize that she is

This is one example of where instead of using her name the ranch workers refer her as Curley’s wife. After finishing this book one question will always be a mystery, what is the name of Curley’s wife. Her lack of identity in the book, might imply that she is not a woman, but rather a possession of her husband. Steinbeck perhaps, portrayed her this way, so that the reader could recognize how society saw women. “ You gotta husband’. You got no call foolin aroun’ with other guys…” (Steinbeck, 77). This is another quote that shows after marriage, a girl has no rights in talking to people because she belongs o her husband. Society has leaded the life of Curley’s wife into the depths of

Curleys wife is provocative with her body language as she is described to have “put her hands behind her back and leaned against the door frame so that her body was thrown forward” and “she looked at her fingernails”, she is very conscious of the affect she has on men and uses this to her advantage however her inappropriate clothes and her behavior I think are designed to provoke interest and attention rather than to invite intimacy, we later learn this is because of her loneliness in her marriage to Curley. Her loneliness is clear by her constant asking of the whereabouts of Curley proving she is just looking for an excuse to continue her conversation with the ranch workers.

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

A moral lesson would be to not judge someone before you get to really know them. There might be more to them than you think. In the novel Of Mice and Men, written by John Steinbeck, the two main characters George and Lennie look for work on a ranch. There’s only one woman on the ranch and that is Curley’s wife. Throughout the novel Steinbeck shows how Curley’s wife is viewed by the men. They think poorly of her and believe her to be nothing but an unfaithful floozy. She only strays from Curley because she feels lonely and neglected. She’s bitter that she missed an opportunity to make it big in the movies. She is now stuck on a ranch with a husband she doesn’t love. She takes all this bottled emotion and projects it at the workers in forms of

In the period of the 1930s in America there were lots of forms of discrimination: one of them was sexism. Women were not seen as equal to men: they had fewer rights than men, were paid less and most of them were only allowed to take care of domestic chores. In that period of time, women started realizing how submitted they were to men, so they began having ideas on how they could improve their lives and gain more independence. They had their own American Dream.

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, who is never given a name, but always called “Curley’s wife”, is shown with a lot of sexual prejudice. She is referred to as a “looloo” (51) with a very flirtatious nature and “she got the eye goin’ all the time on everybody”, and she might “even gives the stable buck they eye” (51). A "ranch with a bunch of guys on it ain’t no place for a girl, specially like

In John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men the novel shows many different kinds of social injustice. Curley’s wife is a prime example of the mistreatment of women in the late 1930s. The women of the time were treated as pieces of property rather than equal human beings to men. None of these men considered Curley's wife’s views or feelings as anything of significance.

- Lord Chesterfield once said, "You must look into people, as well as at them." If you apply this logic to Curley's wife and Crooks in the book, Of Mice and Men, you will find that they are the same in many ways despite their differences in race and sex. These two unfortunate souls live in a world full of shattered dreams, discrimination, and loneliness.