Female Characters In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

“She’s gonna make a mess, they’s gonna be a bad mess about her. She’s a jailbait all set on the trigger”. Of Mice and Men show’s George and Lennie’s path to their American dream. They are starting off as laborers in California in the Salina’s Valley and live in a hand-to-mouth lifestyle on a ranch. The novel portrays many male characters than female. The women shown by Steinback are Curley’s Wife, Susy, and Aunt Clara and are given somewhat respect. Even though there are not many female characters, John Steinbeck symbolizes them as archetypes throughout the book he indicates sexism of women being at the bottom of the social hierarchy in a male workplace. Although all women in the novel are portrayed differently, on some level as authority figures, they differ in the amount of respect received

Aunt Clara is seen as a positive figure at the beginning of the novel because she is a mother-like figure for George and Lennie and provides a further background of their relationship. She signifies that Lennie did, in fact, have nurturing upbringing, despite his mental disorders, as George says to Lennie, “she gave you a rubber mouse” when he kept asking for mice to pet. Although Aunt Clara is seen as a positive authority figure since she is the kin to George and Lennie, by the end of the novel one can note Aunt Clara tormenting Lennie while he is in abject misery after strangling Curley’s wife. In Lennie’s hallucinations, Aunt Clara says, “But you don’t never take no care. You do bad things” and “All the time he coulda had such a good time if it wasn’t for you”. This portrays Aunt Clara having power over Lennie, as she makes him feel guilty and Lennie is able to differentiate between the right and wrong. Aunt Clara is a mother because she can be seen caring for Lennie and correcting his wrongdoings. This signifies Steinback showing that the primary role of respectable women was to be a mother otherwise they had no job. Society during this time did not expect more as