Quotes On Curley's Wife

John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, takes place in California on a ranch in the Salinas Valley during the Great Depression. During this time, the United States of America was in a period of economic decline and people were living in poverty. From these hardships, weaknesses arise in different characters in the novel. In his novel, Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck utilizes the deaths of Candy’s dog, Curley’s wife, and Lennie to reveal that weaker people are eradicated because they cannot defend themselves against others.

Continuously she is being put down by the ranchers and is told consistently that her presence was unwanted on the ranch, even Curley, her husband, would act mentally abusive towards her. Day in and day out, it is assumed that Curley’s wife is being treated this way, and is putting up with this because she feels and/or knows that because she is a woman, she is inferior to them. Albeit her appearance no longer being near the ranchers, nor on the ranch, they will continue to maintain talking rudely about her, George eventually will start to poke fun at her when he only just met her, exclaiming: “‘Jesus, what a tramp,’ he said, ‘So that’s what Curley picks for a wife.’”.

They finally find a ranch, which was filled with men except there was one girl, Curley’s wife. The men had her labeled there as tart. She tried talking to Lennie because he was different than everyone else, but little did she know that caused her death and the leading to his. Steinbeck uses dialogue, characterization,

On the other hand Curley’s wife is always desiring attention due to her isolation: “I get lonely… How’d you like not to talk to anybody”(Steinbeck 87). This is one of the many times Curley’s wife has tried to talk to someone. She has tried to have a conversation with Lennie before but George tells him not to talk to her. Lennie could not resist and talked to her. Her constant desire for attention ultimately leads to her death.

Characters on the ranch see marriage as a relationship recognised by law and a sparkly ring. Throughout the book Curley and Curley 's wife are scared of each other 's power and status on the ranch. In addition the couple feels a need impress one another and a need for the other’s attention. Curley’s wife uses “her eye” to flirt with other men to keep Curley on his toes. On the other hand Curley is always itching to fight bigger and stronger men than himself; trying to prove his worth for his beautiful wife.

Curley’s wife is perhaps the least mentioned and regarded as a minor character but she is perhaps the most essential in the message of attachment. All she has is Curley, whose abusive nature is causing her to despise him more and more every day. She craves talking to others and forming an attachment to the boys on the farm (39). This causes her to try and make conversation with everyone around her. "Nobody can't blame a person for lookin', (40)", She says this as she reached a point where all she wants people to acknowledge her.

She gets nothing much to do in her daily life in the ranch and chooses to flirt because she is really unneeded in the ranch and she is the only woman on the ranch. Another example, that shows her flirting is “She smiled archly and twitched her body” (31). This evidence shows that, Curley's wife, is flirting when she wears provocative clothing that displays a lot of her body, which attracts a great deal of men. It seems that she

Steinbeck creates contrasting images of Curley’s wife by using literary techniques such as pathetic fallacy, juxtaposition and irony. Body 1: When Curley’s wife is first introduced into the novella it isn’t in person, it is through rumours and gossip. Evidence of this is when George is talking to Candy and Candy describes Curley’s wife as a “tart” who has “the eye”. This provides the reader with only a description of a married woman who is immoral and only causes trouble for the ranch hands. Specifically, the word “tart” dismisses her as a person and rids the reader of any thoughts about her having feelings.

”(Steinbeck 88). Curley’s wife unwittingly sets up Lennie to change the entire course of the book and further complicate the situation for them. Lennie ends up killing Curley’s wife in a situation she never should have been in, but her nosy behavior brings her to her doom. If Curley and his wife could produce a real conversation maybe everyone could have gotten their dream to come true but somethings just do not pan out. Curley’s wife can be vicious in about any way just like she is to the other

(Josselyn) Curley’s Wife can be mistaken for an antagonist in the story because she is only described through the men’s point of view. Workers on the ranch view her in one way: as a cause for trouble. The old sweeper, Candy, sheds his perspective on us when he describes her on page 32, saying, “Jesus, what a tramp. So that’s what Curley picks for a wife” (Steinbeck). As men arrive for work, they are flooded with the opinions of all of the existing others.

(87) More specifically, the other men on the ranch refuse to talk to her because Curley’s position of power on the ranch portrays him as having the ability to have any man on the ranch lose their job. Furthermore, when Curley’s wife was conversing with Lennie in the barn and confided in him, she said: “Well, I ain’t

Lennie’s dream is why Curley’s wife dies, because of his strange obsession with petting soft objects, he accidentally kills her. “And Lennie said softly to the puppy, ‘Why do you got to get killed? You ain’t so little as mice. I didn’t bounce you hard.’”

Similarly to Lennie, Curley’s wife also feels left out and different from everyone else. She is not considered a “normal” wife, or have a “normal” hope for her future. Most people during this time hoped to get married and become a housewife; Curley 's wife aspired to be an actress and only married Curley when it did not work out. Curley’s wife told Lennie, “I ast her if she stole it, too, an’ she said no. So I married Curley (Steinbeck 88).”

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.

Curley’s Wife: The Struggle of Getting Out From Her Cage Throughout literature, women who are characterized as shameless temptresses are often the way they are because of a desperation to break away from society’s oppression of low-class, uneducated females. This is never more true than for Curley’s wife in the fictional novella Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Through considerate yet concise descriptions of her fantasy of Hollywood stardom, putting down of others, and attention-seeking ways, Curley’s wife is revealed to be a downtrodden female who suffers from her own internal, emotional conflict. Curley’s wife muses about her Hollywood ideal as a reassurance that she is a woman of worth and potential.