Analysis Of Curley's Wife

Curley’s wife is the main women character in Steinbeck’s novel of mice and men. In this piece of writing I will be discussing the good and bad about Curley’s wife.
Firstly Steinbeck uses colour to give a description on Curley’s wife. ‘She has rouged lips and red fingernails; her mules are red and are covered with red ostrich feathers’. The first opinion of her that comes to mind is that she is a dangerous women and she uses her sexuality to gain male attention. The colour red suggests love and passion however as we find out later on in the novel she is not in love with Curley so her appearance is not to gain his attention, so who’s attention is she out to get? The way Steinbeck has described her intentions are to give the readers the impression
To all the men on the ranch and to the readers she is just known as ‘Curley’s wife’ so this could prevent anybody having a relationship with her, this could mean friends and even her husband. Even though she has no name she is still married to the boss and lives with him, this also could prevent her to have relationships with other workers because she is described as someone powerful who is capable of dark things. She is not seen as someone important and that is why she knocks people down who are very low like herself. ‘They left all the weak ones here’ this could suggest that Curley has gone out and left all the weak ones on the ranch including herself although she wouldn’t think that herself. It could also suggest that she says things like that to make herself feel in charge and like she has a purpose rather than just being Curley’s wife. I think that she has no use on the ranch other than to be one of Curley’s trophies so she isn’t even worth a name so he does not give her
I think she behaves the way she does because she knows that her dream is probably not going to happen. Curley’s wife has mentioned a few times ‘I coulda been in the movies.’ She was expecting a letter from a Hollywood producer but never turned up. The only excuse she could come up with to why the letter never came was that her auntie stole the letter so she wouldn’t move away. This is why she married Curley to get back at her aunt not out of love for him. The way she dresses and acts on the ranch suggests she could possibly think she is a movie star. ‘She made a small grand gesture with her arm and hand to show that she could act.’ This shows that the ranch is not the right place for her and she is only there because she has nothing better to do and maybe she isn’t planning on staying. She may be hoping to save money and make a secret escape to go and for fill her dream. Finally even though Steinbeck presents Curley’s wife as quite a complicated, self centred, flirtatious women I don’t personally think she has bad intentions. I think Steinbeck only told the readers the bad points about her. I agree that she is very flirtatious however she wasn’t actually looking for sex. She was just very lonely and bored, she just wanted somebody to speak to and thought that by wearing bright clothes and loads of makeup the men on the ranch would perhaps talk to her but she was