Of Mice and Men Draft

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 had to go day by day with the haunting of having no one to talk to besides her husband Curley, nothing to do all day, and living with the bitterness of her decisions. Initially in the novel Curley’s wife is described very critical; she is said to always be seeking the guy's attention. Many of the men would try to stay as far away as possible, including the main characters George and Lennie, but as the novel progressed her character is described more in depth. She really just wants more.

At one point, Curley's wife is described as standing outside of Crook's room, looking at 'all the weak ones'. The image of her standing by the door suggests she sees herself as apart from them, as almost their boss through her link with Curley, but when she insulting says, 'they left all the weak ones here', while intended as mockery it unintentionally ironically links her with them.

She is a lonely woman. The reason Curley’s wife wants attention from everybody is become of the lack of love she feels. When she tries to talk to Lennie he denies her. She asks “Why can’t I talk to you? I never get to talk to nobody, I get awful lonely.”

While Crooks, a victim of racial prejudice, expresses his isolation openly, he also socializes with the other workers on the job and while playing horseshoes with them. Curley’s wife, on the other hand, cannot talk to anyone without suffering the consequences of a jealous husband: “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 anybody?” (87) More specifically,after meeting him that same night, Curley’s wife ran away from home to marry Curley to spite her mother. She further confessed to Lennie she doesn’t even like Curley. As a result, she left one situation hoping to move closer to capturing her dreams, but her companion’s jealous and violent behavior prevents her from even socializing with others.(88) Therefore, she went from living with multiple people to living with only Curley, who is supposed to be her companion and someone she

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

Essay about Curley’s wife Curley’s wife is the only female character in the novel Of Mice of Men; Curley’s wife is never given a name and is only referred to in reference to her husband. Like the other people on the ranch, she is very lonely and has dreams of a better life which never come true. The author John Steinbeck introduces Curley’s wife in a symbolic ness way, this is shown when George is talking to Lennie about the dream and when Curley’s wife first meets both the men. “Both men glanced up, for the rectangle of sunshine in the doorway was cut off.

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

When Curley’s wife dies, Curley, rather than showing the reaction that would be expected of a man whose wife has just been killed. He does not appear to grieve at all in any way, barely looking at the body, or regarding the her death into his immediate future plans. Instead, his first thought is towards seeking revenge and hunting down Lennie. It is perhaps this moment in the novel which epitomises the way in which Curley is aggressive, nasty, and shows no concern

Readers abhor her racial abuse of Crooks and condemn her for being patronising and threatening towards him. The use of the hyphen makes the readers stop and fully absorb the intensity of the situation before moving on and it enables them to take in the cruelty and nastiness of Curley’s wife. She aggravates the situation as she is discriminating crooks in his very own room and this evokes emotions and feelings of disgust and abhorrence towards Curley’s wife and this portrays her as none other than a villain. Curley’s wife is able to contradict her generally low and degrading status as she is aware of the fact that, in this case, she is superior to Crooks and the other two men (Lennie and

At this point Crooks is reminded that he is not a white folk and that he will never be treated as one. In the end of the story one character, curley's wife shows a ton of loneliness. She states ”Wha’s the matter with me?” she cried.

Loneliness affects Crooks and Curley’s wife through their actions and how they live. Curley’s wife is portrayed as a sexual and inappropriate woman to other men in the novella because of her makeup and behavior. Her makeup is a mask covering her real self –lonely and living a life of solitude. Even though she is married, not once do we see Curley’s wife and her husband together. Curley is going to a whore house every Saturday and his wife acts subtle about it. We

Unlike Crooks, she has not accepted herself to be lonely forever and is still trying to reach out to others on the farm. Curley’s wife is the only woman on the ranch, so no other man wants to talk to her. Steinbeck’s purpose is that Curley’s wife is lonely because no one understands her, and she is overlooked as untrustworthy. The ignorance of the men causes her to be outcast and it cripples her to think that she is unable to ever talk or befriend anyone, but she desperately tries to. To continue, when Curley’s wife is angered by Lennie saying that he should stay away, Curley’s wife cries “What kinda harm am I doing to you?

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,

Curley’s wife is a lonely and Naïve, and that makes her an easy prey. She is the only woman on the ranch she is a lonely woman. Her husband, Curley, is a mean and over powering man, uses her to pick fights with other guys. He is a terrible husband who not only is mean to his wife but also leads us to believe that he beats her up. Curley’s wife usually would listen to her records but Curley even breaks those. Her flirtatious nature is what gets her into trouble, and that also leads her to her death. Lennie is a gentle giant who doesn’t mean to hurt anybody but accidentally does. In the case of Lennie, Curley’s wife does not know what she is getting in for. Curley’s wife flirtatious nature is a harsh reality but as an innocent person get her in to trouble.