How Is Curley's Wife A Victim

How does Steinbeck present the characters of Crooks and Curley 's wife ? In what way are these minor characters shown to be significant throughout the novel ?

Curley’s wife acts very provocative, playful, childish and flirtatious, this is because she is very lonely and has no power at all. Nobody knows the real person she is because no one ever dares to get in trouble with her. Curley’s wife is often presented negatively by Steinbeck such as when she is cruel to crooks after his hopes have been raised by the dream. This is easily shown when Curley’s wife snaps at Crooks. “keep your place then, Nigger.

Curley’s wife is treated with very little respect because of the small amount of power she has, which depicts Steinbeck’s lesson that people with less power are treated differently and then go on to treat others unequally, as well. Curley’s wife has a flirty reputation and often goes to talk to the men on the ranch even though she knows she shouldn't be. Shortly after Lennie and George are first introduced to Curley’s wife, George remarks, “Gosh, she was purty.” George is shocked and fiercely tells Lennie, “Don't you even take a look at that bitch. I don't care what she says and what she does. I seen ‘em poison before, but I never seen no piece of jail bait worse than her. You leave her be”(Steinbeck 32). Lennie’s initial reaction of Curley’s wife is not uncommon for the lack of intelligence he has. George’s fierce attitude toward Curley’s wife when he calls her

Finally, John Steinbeck shows off the bullying and meanness as intentional and contrasts it to Lennie’s unintentional meanness, such as when he hurts the puppy (pg 85), the mouse (pg 5), and kills Curley’s wife (pg 91). When Curley wants to fight it is intentional and violent. George explains Lennie’s violence when he says that Lennie "never done it in meanness" (pg 104). Lennie kills because he does not know his own strength – he cuddles or loves to hard. Also, he panics and reacts without thought, such as when he pulled the woman’s dress. (pg 41) Also, showing a contrast in motive is that Lennie is so upset by what he has done, especially to Curley’s wife. He is the only one who shows real remorse.

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

Curley’s wife - a flirtatious, mysterious women in the novel. She is the only women that is described by Steinbeck in the novel. How we call her- “Curley’s wife” shows that she is just a possession of Curley. And the others names that George and Candy had given to her are “looloo; jailbait; tart”; these names show how badly she was treated in the ranch particularly and the sexism in American society in 20s - 30s generally.

In the novella Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck set in the Salinas valley in the 1930’s, many people can hold the blame for Curley’s Wife’s death. There may be only one person who physically killed her but, many others helped to cause the death of Curley’s Wife. The people who had more responsibility than the others are Curley’s Wife’s Mom, Lennie, and Curley’s Wife.

I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain't even funny." This quote tells us that Curley's Wife knows that she is above Crooks in the social hierarchy since she is white and he is black and has a disability. When she talks to Crooks she is also very confident and disrespectful and uses racist language. When you zoom into the quote you will also see a ellipses in the quote which shows the tension and anger which Curley's Wife would never show to the other men even Lennie. Steinbeck may have used this language to emphasise the villain in herself. Which tells us that if she had more power she would use it in a negative way. You can also tell that Curley's Wife is releasing her anger towards Crooks since he is one of the only people she can show her

The character of Curley’s Wife is very hard to unravel, as throughout the book, Steinbeck’s representation of women through characters such as George and Candy, is very harsh. This is because the sociological opinion at that time was that they were either, mothers, sisters, or prostitutes,

Steinbeck shows us the evils of temptation and the innocence they hold. Curley’s wife is a symbol temptation, poison to men on ranch and the main reason for Lennie’s death. In the  Garden of Eden, Eve betrays the word of God and brought sin and evil into world. Curley’s wife is known as a tart, very pretty, and has “the eye”. All of which are distracting and tempting attributes to a man on the ranch, when there is no other women in sight. Eve ignores God’s warnings to fulfill her own wishes and manipulates Adam in the process. Curley’s wife is dressed in red things when she is physically described, this red can symbolize the red apple Eve took. The redness of an apple can stand for love and beauty, but these “good” characteristics also have their flaws. The love and beauty that appears to be genuine is just another example of temptation.  The evil serpent enticed Eve into eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. This action was the first immoral act and caused mankind to be set out of place. Curley’s wife is similar to both Eve as well as the evil serpent. For Curley’s wife’s beauty and soft hair is what tempts Lennie towards her, while she is also manipulative like Eve in getting what she wants. Curley’s wife only married Curley so that she wouldn’t feel lonely. “Well I wasn’t gonna stay no place where I couldn’t get nowhere or make anything of myself, and’ where they stole your letter” (Steinbeck 88). Curley’s wife was convinced her mother had stolen her letter from a guy who works in Hollywood, she believed her mother destroyed her chances of ever being a famous actress. She was lonely and hopeless, so when she met Curley at the Riverside Dance Palace she stuck with him because he gave her the attention she seeked. Eve and Curley’s wife only think for themselves, not once do they give thought to how their consequences can affect others. Eve influencing Adam to take a fruit from the forbidden tree caused vile things to enter their perfect world. Curley’s wife’s interest in Lennie, his strength, and his quietness brought

When Crooks, Lennie, and Candy were sitting in in the bunkhouse, Curley’s wife wanders into the bunkhouse and how Steinbeck says, “Looking in was Curley’s wife.” giving her no name at all! She must not be as important as everyone else if she doesn’t have a name (77). She’s also judged on her appearance and how she puts herself out there, Steinbeck mentions to the readers and says “She dropped her fingers and put her hands on her hips.” making it seem like she’s the stuff and run everyone and everything on the ranch (77). She probably acts the way she does because she doesn’t get to talk to anyone. Everyone is scared to talk to her or just doesn’t want to get into anything with Curley. She’s very lonely and she is the only girl on the farm. As she walked into the barn she saw Lennie and started talking to him and Lennie refused to talk back and that’s when she said “Ain’t I got a right to talk to nobody?” she’s upset because she doesn’t do anything all day long and has no one to talk too and she finally lost it and said something about it (87).

In the novel Curley’s Wife is portrayed as a source of trouble and danger for the men, not only in how she is described, such as ‘Curley’s married a tart’, but also in how Steinbeck portrays her affect on light and hope. Lennie and George first come across Curley’s wife when ‘the rectangle of sunshine in the door way was cut off. A girl was standing there looking in’. She is blocking one of the only light sources into the bunkhouse, which indicates that she is an obstacle on the path to realising hopes and dreams, for Lennie, George and the other men. George is wary of Curley’s Wife and so he warns Lennie ‘ Well you keep away from her, ‘cause she’s a rat trap ’. He suspects that someday she will cause Lennie to get into trouble, thus making it harder to reach their dreams. In the barn towards the end of the novel when Lennie kills Curley’s Wife, ‘ the sun streaks were high on the wall...and the light was growing soft ’. In this situation the light represents her hopes and dreams

John Steinbeck presents Curley’s wife at the start of the story as an irrelevant character because she has no relation with George and Lennie. At the start, Curley is one of the most important characters (besides George and Lennie) because he has the power to crush George and Lennie’s dream of having a farm of your own. But as the story goes on, to end, we see the importance of her character and that everything that has happened on the ranch is caused by her presence; even though she is not in the story as much as others, she has a long lasting effect on the other characters. She is mentioned in the story a lot because of how she would acted around the men working in the ranch. In the end, we knew Lennie and George were not going to get a

One character in the story does not even have a name: Curley’s wife. Steinbeck illustrates her as someone who is a pawn of those around her. On the surface, she is reduced to a rude and selfish woman. But, if one looks deeper, Curley’s wife’s gender and class hinder her high aspirations and reduces her to ridicule. Her husband restricts her contact with others and does not show any affection towards her. She reveals this while

Curley's wife on the other hand is rude without excuse. " `Listen, Nigger' , she said. `You know what I can do to you if you open you trap'" She abuses her position and has no respect for him at all, she doesn't even refer to him by his name, looking down on him with utter contempt and disdain. It is attitudes like hers that have turned him into the bitter man he has become – "Crooks had reduced himself to nothing. There was no personality, no ego-nothing to arouse either like or dislike"