Explore Some of the Ways in Which Steinbeck Presents Different Characters in the Novel!

She only married Curley because she wanted to get away from her Mother. The only reason she wanted to leave her Mother was because she thought her Mother was

In his short book or novella Of Mice and Men, author John Steinbeck draws attention to migrant farm workers in the Depression era of the 1930s. Through his story he looks at human nature in the areas of men’s friendship, loneliness, and meanness or bullying. This essay looks at Steinbeck’s depiction of the tendency to bully others and that the tendency seems to come from their own weakness. This meanness is shown in the relationships of the characters. The bullying is physical, psychological, and emotional and nearly all of the characters demonstrate it, including George, Candy, Crooks, and Curley’s wife and it is contrasted to the unintentional violence of Lennie.

In this essay I am going to be assessing the character Curleys Wife from Steinbeck’s book Of Mice And Men. The book is set in the 1930s during the Great Depression it features two farm workers called George and Lennie. The travel around together in search of work sharing a dream of a place of their own, a small ranch where they can live and work for themselves. It tells the story of how violence may erupt to destroy those dreams. Curleys wife is a character in the book who from the brief encounters with her is presented in two ways. Firstly the dangerous, flirtatious character who isn’t trusted by the rest of the ranch workers but then later one we realize how she is just a victim

She is forever associated with a man that she hates. Even Lulu, Candy’s dog, has a name. With the inclusion of Suzy, a woman who owns a brothel, Steinbeck allows readers to understand the hypocrisy of society during the Great Depression. Curley’s wife is lonely. She is condemned to marry a man she despises, is forced to abandon her dreams and forbidden to talk to anyone. She is desperate. Desperate for companionship. She tries talking to the men on the ranch but is isolated on the assumption that she is a temptress. Despite her never acting on any sexual endeavours due to society’s restricting motifs that women could only be a housewife or a temptress, the men suppose she is trying to seduce them. Due to these unfair assumptions, she is seen to be nothing but trouble and this diminishes her worth to men. Suzy on the other hand, although a woman, is celebrated because she provides prostitutes for the men. This shows that, if women during the Great Depression were of use to men, they would be commemorated, but if they weren’t, they would be marginalised, seen as inferior and forced to be property of their husbands.

A social issue that Steinbeck desired to reveal in Of Mice and Men was the reality women were facing as they were regarded as property or objects and not as individual people in the 1930s. Women would often times not even have the chance to defend and explain themselves against this cynical perspective on them, “Well, I think Curley's married a tart... ‘Listen to me, you crazy bastard,’ he said fiercely ‘Don’t you even take a look at at that bitch’...You mean Curly's girl?” (Steinbeck 28, 32, 55). The first thing we hear George say about Curley’s wife is that she’s a tart and the second thing we hear about her that

Some characters in this novel are alienated by mainstream society because they do not fit society’s ideal image of a person. And they are all not accepted as human beings. Throughout John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, the social injustice of how people were treated during the Great Depression is explored through the characters Crooks, Curley’s wife, and Lennie, to show that society actually needs to become stronger than it really is.

Steinbeck has written ''Of Mice And Men '' about an adventure of George and Lennie trying to accomplish their American dream's during the Great Depression during the 1930's where thousands of people lost their jobs in the Wall Street Crash making them feel hopeless. George and Lennie come to work at a ranch near Soledad in California. There they meet fellow ranch mates and a woman called Curley's Wife. In this essay I will focus on how Curley's Wife's personality and actions change throughout the novella and who she affect her and other bunkmates throughout the novella. In addition to that I would be showing how Steinbeck creates tension by using Curleys Wife.

During the 1930s, discrimination was present in many forms, from racial to sexual. Through Curley 's wife, John Steinbeck demonstrates the feelings of a typical woman during the Great Depression. Initially, Steinbeck provides a biased perception about Curley 's wife. She is described as a "‘jail bait '" (Steinbeck 32) and a "‘tart '" (28) by George in that she is very flirtatious and can get the men in trouble. She always appears in a red amorous dress and uses her excuse of looking for her husband to converse with the men. However, they do not sympathize with her at all. As stated in George 's quote, "‘ranch ain 't no place for a girl '" (51), she is forced to live in a male dominated society where her freedom and dreams are limited.

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.

“Guys like us, that work on ranches are the loneliness guys in the world. They got no family...we got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us” (Steinbeck 14). During the Great Depression, much of society is alienated while survival of the fittest prevails. The power of loneliness affects the individual involved as long as the society it is present in continues to harvest the discriminatory ways. During the 1930’s, the Great Depression was at its peak; The stock markets crashed, and a chain reaction caused the unemployment rates to rise to an all time high. Thus, migrant worker became popular because they were always needed on a farm and it was a way for one to find employment. In of Mice and Men, Candy, Crooks, and Curley’s wife are all victims of the Great Depression. Candy and Crooks work on the farm, while Curley’s wife is the flirtatious nuisance whose dreams were crushed. The pervasive emotion throughout this novella is loneliness. Loneliness is felt by Candy, Crooks, and and Curley’s wife, whether it’s being represented symbolically as the characters are fighting social devastation, learning to make it alone, or through their actions.

There is a lot of racial prejudice shown in this novel towards Crooks, the black stable-hand. Crooks, the “more permanent than the other men” (67), had his own “little shed that leaned off the wall of the barn” (66) with “more possessions than he could carry on his back” (67). He, "ain’t wanted in the bunk house" (68) just because he is "black, they play cards in there but I can’t play because I’m black" (68). Curley’s wife would never call him by his name, and treated him awfully while abusing her position as the boss’ son’s wife. “’Listen, Nigger’, she said, ‘you know what I can do to you if you open you trap’"(80).

‘..Guys like us that work on ranches are the loneliest guys in the world they got no family they don’t belong no place.’ This is what many felt during the ‘great depression’ in the 1930’s. John Steinbeck gives us the sense that many felt lonely ‘they got no family they don’t belong no place. The main theme of this novel is alienation; the three characters, Curley’s wife, candy, and crooks are all alienated, and felt it by another person at some point. They all have dreams... it’s the American dream... but not all dreams come true...

John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men, takes place during the Great Depression in the 1930’s, in the Salinas Valley, California. It establishes the prospect of the American Dream, discrimination,loneliness, and disenfranchisement through its characters. George and Lennie provided the value of the American Dream, to which the leading female role, Curley’s wife, represents how women are exempt from the American Dream, and appeared as less than equal to men. She developed a form of loneliness throughout the course of the novel. The novella seeks to demonstrate the way of which life was like for the characters of all different statuses and backgrounds. Through Curley’s wife’s character, we are able to see how life was like for a women during

In John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men characters in the novel are segregated by sex, race, age, physical and mental disabilities. John Steinbeck portrays the intolerance and bigotry of 1930’s America through the separation of his characters based on their handicaps. Lennie, Candy, Candy’s dog, Curley’s wife and Crooks all face social pressure from the other characters on the ranch based on their intelligence, physical disability, age, sex and color. Stereotyping based on ethnic or physical characteristics is typical to the 1930’s depression where civil rights for minority groups had not yet been addressed. Almost all of the characters who, in

Because of her mother, she had to marry Curley. For this reason, she is isolated on the ranch and has to live a lonely life. On the other hand, Crooks also tells Lenny about his past. “‘The white kids came to play at our place, an’ was pretty nice. My ol’ man didn’t like that. But I know now” (70). Crooks understands segregation through his childhood stories and his father. Now that he recognizes discrimination, he knows that he has to live a isolated life on the ranch because of his skin color. In a way, both characters end up in extreme loneliness because of their parents. Curley’s wife wants to be an actress and Crooks wants to be treated equally and longs for a better relationship with white men. Their aspirations are all shattered because they are isolated. Additionally, both speak to Lenny about their past. The effects of these factors leads them to a lonely life on the ranch and affects them emotionally and physically.