Women appeared to be extremely irrelevant in the novel. Many had no voice, but especially not a name. Curley’s wife was not respected as she is not given a name, ignored and was talked about her, such things as being a “tart”. Many ranch workers did not know her but still had created a single story of her. Curley's wife may be an awful woman, but she has to presence neglect and isolation. Steinbeck uses her character to create a visual of the difficulties that women had to face during the Great Depression. There are not evident loving relationship with women, the only ones that are mentioned belong in a house of prostitution, which corrupts the view of all women in the novel . Curley’s wife had no companions and was ignored. Curley treats her as a possession …show more content…
At the end of the story, Curley’s wife dies beings released from her loneliness“…discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face. She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet”. When she was alive, she was playing a character and no one could see her, but now she was dead, acting was gone. Finally, in death, she could find the peace and calm that evaded her when she was alive and a prisoner.
The last aspect of masculinity in Of Mice and Men is emotional. Throughout the novel , George has a strong male role, who does not reveal his thoughts or feelings. George is in denial of his feelings. He appears to be negative with an impatient man, although he is a loving and caring person he tries to hide it. George knows that he could live easily, if he did not have Lennie. He could “get along so easy and so nice”, “have a girl” and keep a job” but he does not leave Lennie because he feels responsible for him. George feels the love of a parent towards Lennie and could not leave him, although he seems to demonstrate the opposite in the novel. On the contrary, Lennie is completely welcoming about his feelings. He expresses
"The meanness...and the ache for attention were [gone] from her face" (82). Furthermore, Curley's wife looks as though she were innocent. Steinbeck depicts her in this way because he wants sympathy to be felt toward her.
Because Curley’s wife is closely connected to the boss, her engagements towards the men on the ranch will only push her further away from them. Also, when Curley’s wife appears, her loneliness pours out of her with resentment. She describes her isolation at the ranch by stating, “I get lonely...you can talk to people, but I can't talk to nobody but Curley” (87). This shows that shes just a lonely young and naive girl, who uses her sexuality to get noticed on the
5 p. 84-98 As the only female character in the story, Curley’s wife was always referred to in reference to her husband. She liked representing herself as a female, and was most always dressed in fancy, feathered red shoes. She always dreamed big and was always ready to face her enemies. Lennie’s pup died. Like the mice, Lennie pet the dog too hard that it passed away.
The view that Curley has for his wife is used as a symbol for how all men view women in the society at the time. Men in society seem to think that women are sexual objects that are only there when they need or want them to be. The description of Susy’s and
Curley’s wife is finds herself in an unlucky situation while attempting to befriend the “gentle” giant, Lennie, adding on to her already unfortunate past. She converses to Lennie of all her past plans, saying “‘I coulda made somethin’ of myself.’” Curley’s wife then reveals her backstory, how she nearly did make something of herself, with an actor or movie star husband, not some short-tempered, condescending control-freak. Following this, she dies because Lennie didn’t want her alerting the others to their location. What’s more, as readers follow the story, people see her as, states Candy, a “floozy,” which influences the opinion of how Curley’s wife is portrayed, a horrible, good-for-nothing whore.
She was only written with negative character traits which made it so characters or readers were never able to sympathize with her. Next, no character ever had a turning point where they saw Curley’s wife as more than exactly that, Curley’s wife. And finally, he never gave her a name. There was a great imbalance between sexism and making the readers question the sexism. If Steinbeck had chosen to give the woman some justice the message against sexism would have been stronger.
And because she had confided in him, she moved closer to Lennie and sat beside him”(Steinbeck 89). As a result of this, she is left with a man she doesn’t find attractive or love. So she is trapped in this relationship that she doesn’t like her life at the moment. She believes that her life would be so much better if she did get that note and went up to Hollywood. Overall, Curley’s wife’s gender discrimination against her led her to getting stuck in a relationship that she does not enjoy and losing her chance to be able to go out in the acting
Curley’s wife, the only main female presented in the novella, is depicted as a harlot. The only other time females are mentioned is when they are mentioned as being ladies in whore houses. This depiction sets the tone for all females presented in the novella. Instead of being seen as a worker, women were mainly seen as man’s companion, and as a symbol for love, lust, and desire. In the novella Curley’s wife’s appearance is described as, “Her face heavily made up.
Steinbeck’s presentation of Curley’s wife leads to a misconception of her personality and dehumanizes her character. While lacking a name, Curley’s wife exhibits “a deep strong and eventually weak side” (Taja 2). By not using her real name, Steinbeck demonstrates the lack of respect that she receives at the ranch by the men. Depriving her of even human identification, the characters treat her as if she is not a person that they can interact with, rather a danger of losing their jobs that they carefully and strategically avoid. Her roundness of character not only demonstrates her soft side but also exhibits the way the men treat her in an inhumane way, even using prostitutes’ names over
Finally, Steinbeck dehumanizes Curley by the negative criticism that always pursues her and her loss of identity when accompanying someone or something. This is why she is always commonly known as “Curley’s Wife”, proving that she is an unimportant and insignificant character in this book. Plus, everybody in the book says that Curley’s wife causes trouble for everyone; as George says, “She’s a jail bait all set on the trigger,” (Steinbeck, 49) and is constantly getting blame for all that goes wrong in Soledad; as Candy says, You God damn tramp. You done it, di’n’t you? I s’pose you’re glad.
The result of Curley’s wife not having friends she became lonely and depressed.
In such time of the Great Depression and gender equality, this novel presents the character of sexism, Curley’s wife, to show how her dreams has been achieved through death. During her talk with Lennie, she tells him that she “‘[...]never get[s] to talk to nobody [and that she] get[s] awfully lonely’” (Steinbeck 86). Even though she is depicted as a flirtatious, “‘[...]purty [...] bitch’”, her true life was lonely and segregated from the male ranchers (Steinbeck 32). Steinbeck applies this paradox in the story to picture the reader about how a character’s identity can either encourage or ruin his or her reasons to live and achieve a future.
In the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck we learn about the characteristics and personalities of most characters early within the book. Except for one character who is very mysterious. Curley's wife is the only woman on the ranch. Everyone on the ranch refers to her as Curley's wife throughout the whole book. Is a character who does not have a name that important to the story?
The author showed that Curley's wife is an outcast by not giving her a name at any point in the novel. This makes it obvious that women are treated less than men, especially at this time. The book’s setting is the 1930s around the time of the Great Depression (Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Ketcham). During this time women were looked at and treated as less than men in almost every aspect of daily life. Steinbeck wanted to keep her unnamed to show that she was a stray.
During the great depression not many people had it easy and Curley’s Wife was one of those people who didn’t have so easy especially because she was a woman and at the time they didn’t have many rights. Curley’s Wife is the most misunderstood character because of her background, her seemingly unloving husband, and troubling times during the great depression. To begin, Curley’s Wife has hard times and is misunderstood because she takes her emotions out on innocent people. One example of when Curley’s wife took her anger out on an innocent person is when she yelled at Crooks.