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Curly's Wife

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Of Mice and Men was written by John Steinbeck in 1937 and was published also in 1937. The novella is set in 1940’s America a time when the rights of women were very different to what they are now. Of Mice and Men is a story about George Milton and Lennie Small, two itinerant farm labourers. They are travelling from a ranch in Weed to another ranch in Soledad. They had to leave the ranch in Weed because Lennie, who isn’t the sharpest knife in the draw, went to feel a women’s red dress and she went screaming to the ranch owner that Lennie was trying to rape her. Once the protagonists George and Lennie arrive at the ranch in Soledad they meet Curley, the boss’s son, Candy, the swamper, and lots of other male ranch workers. They also meet …show more content…

He creates this effect because referring to men as boys makes you feel like Curley’s wife still has a child’s mindset. Steinbeck also makes us feel like Curley’s wife knows she isn’t very high on the ranch hierarchy when she says to Crooks, Candy and Lennie ‘They left all the weak ones here’ this makes the reader feel as if she has included herself in the ‘weak ones’ by the use of the word ‘all’ and as these four characters are the only people left on the ranch at this particular point in the book this is all the more likely to be the case. Steinbeck also shows that Curley’s wife isn’t very high up in the order of the ranch through the way she picks on Crooks as he is the only person on the ranch whom in below Curley’s wife in the ranch hierarchy. ‘she turned on him in scorn’ by the use of the word ‘scorn’ Steinbeck shows us as the reader that Curley’s wife thinks that Crooks is worthless as would have most people in the 1930’s . This is because since slavery was abolished black people’s right had changed little. Steinbeck also references to slavery in his use of the word ‘whip’ and in the sentence in which it is used ‘waiting for him to move so she could whip at him again’ makes the reader feel as if she is a slave trader and she is using a whip to get the slaves back in line after an outburst. Steinbeck uses this word to show that no matter how bad women’s rights were in the 1930’s the rights of the black American were always going to be worse.

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