Curleys Wife

Behaviour: –

She is mean (but in today’s views it would be seen as racist) as she threatens Crooks and tells him that she can have him hung without really trying. “Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.” (Page 80) this shows that she is a typical person from 1930’s America as she has very bias views towards Crooks as he is black and he is cripple. People in 1930’s America thought badly of black people so black people were often miss-treated and abused. Cripples were often thought badly of as they couldn’t do work as well as the other people so they were often ill-treated and abused.

She is also shown to be a bully as she insults the other three outcasts (Lennie, Candy and Crooks) “standin’ here talkin’ to a bunch of bindle stiffs – a nigger an’ a dum-dum and a lousy ol’ sheep.” (Page 78) This shows that she thinks she has more power than the other 3 outcasts however she is just as much as an outcast as the other 3 as she is the only woman on the farm and she isn’t capable of working with the others. She only has more mental power over the farm as she is married to Curley so she is the boss’s son’s wife so she can get anyone fired on the farm if she feels threatened by them. However she is not treated any better by anyone on the farm as she is a woman.

Appearance: -

“She had full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages. She wore a cotton house dress and red mules, on the insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers.” When she was dead this is what she was described as: - “the meanness and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face. She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young. Now her rouged cheeks and her redden lips made her seem alive and sleeping very lightly. The curls, tiny little sausages, were spread on the hay behind her head, and her lips were parted. Before hand she flopped like a fish. And then she was still, for Lennie had broken her neck.”

Key things they say: –

“Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.” This is a key thing she says as it shows her views about black people to be very mean and racist in our views but it wouldn’t be in hers as that is a typical view of that time period. This quote shows Curley’s wife to be mean and only care about herself. However this quote shows her to be innocent and lonely. “Why can’t I talk to you? I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely.” This shows that she is in her own little world as she never gets to talk to anyone else as she gets ignored by the others and sort of bullied by them. She is lonely as there is no other woman on the farm and no one else she can talk to other than Curley.

Key things other people say about them: -

There are a lot of things said about Curley’s wife throughout the Book:

“Well I think Curley’s married a tart”

“I’ve seen them poison before”

“But I’ve never seen no jail bait worst than her”

“Married two weeks and got the eye” this point shows that she may not be that loyal to Curley because she looks at other men on the farm also she may have realised that her marriage is poor and no going well and is look to find another husband to ‘rescue her’

“And the meanness and the plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face.” This shows that after Steinbeck making the characters to dislike her through out the book then changes his mind when she dies

How Steinbeck portrays them: –

At the start of the book Steinbeck shows her to be a terrible woman as she is called many names which are bad like “tart, poison, jailbait.” This shows that many of the other people don’t like her as they insult her in many ways. However when she dies at the end of the book she is shown to be innocent. “She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young.” This shows that Steinbeck wants us to change our opinion about her and for us to feel sorry for her as she is shown to be innocent and lonely. Also that she only did what she did because she was lonely and had no one to talk to like all the others did. She was also out of place as she was the only woman on the farm and she had no job like the others did so she had nothing to do to pass her time.

Their purpose in the book: -

Curley’s wives purpose in the book is to show the dominance that Curley has over the other men on the ranch. This is shown by her not being given a name throughout the book this shows that she is seen as being owned by curley and also she is in the story to have a part in stopping Lennie and George getting there dream by causing trouble for them.

The significance of their name: –

Curley’s wife’s name (or the fact that she doesn’t have one) is significant as it shows that she is only an item to Curley and not an actual person. This shows that women in 1930’s America weren’t important as they weren’t valued by the men and they didn’t do any jobs as there place was at home and not at work (this is what men’s view would have been at that time).

Their Dream: -

Curley's wife has a different dream to the other characters in Steinbeck’s book. She dreams of being a film star. She obviously hated the place where she grew up and when she was told she had the potential to be in movies she thought she could escape to Hollywood. However, she never got as far as Hollywood and ended up being trapped on the ranch with no one to talk to. Curley is not interested in her dream and the only person she finds to share it with is Lennie. Curley's wife's dream is also ended by Lennie.

“Coulda been in the movies, and had nice clothes".

"I aint used to livin’ like this. I coulda made something of myself"

By her saying these words, she is almost living in the past and feels sorry for herself because nobody else is going to.

I think deep down her dream wasn’t going to become true because dreams like that that doesn’t happen to people like her.

Key events they are involved in: -

Curley’s wife is involved in key roles throughout the book the main part of the book that she is involved in was the deaths of herself and Lennie. she in a way lured him in when he said “I like to touch soft things” and she said “sometimes when I brush my hair I just like to sit there and stroke it cause it’s so soft” she says this and the encourages Lennie to stroke it but when he likes something he doesn’t like to let go of it and he starts screaming which makes him put his hand over her mouth and does not let go and she continues to scream so he shakes her and she gets her neck snapped because Lennie does not know his own strength this then causes Lennie to be killed because he had committed a murder So if she was not in the story then Lennie would may not of got into trouble and not been killed so him and George may have completed their American dream.