Curley's Wife Ambiguous Character

In the novel of “Of Mice and Men” Steinbeck invented an extremely ambiguous character known as Curely’s Wife. Readers would ether like or dislike the personality of Curley’s Wife. Her dream was to be in the movies as she quotes “Nother time I met a guy an’ he was in pitchers. Went out to the Riverside Dance Palace with him. He says he was gonna put me in the movies. Says I was a natural” In the novel she was massively disliked by the other characters for her attracting the attention of other men when she was married. She does this by the way she dresses. This makes her sexually provocative and attractive to men.

Firstly in the novel of “Of Mice and Men” Curley’s wife was described in details. For instance “her hair hung in little rolled clusters like sausages” “fully rouged lips” “heavily made up”. This makes us think that Curley’s
Wife cares about her appearance. Poignantly “sausages” is used as food imagery. This makes us feel that her and her hair is seen as food not as a person who has feelings. This makes us feel sorry for her as she is only consumed by men eyes.

The positive side of her makes us feel sorry for her. For example “think I don’t like to talk to someone ever once in a while” This makes us feel sorry because she is misunderstood and lonely. This clearly establishes that she likes to talk to people to show that she isn’t floozy and is a nice kind girl who needs company because she is lonely.

Nevertheless the negative side of her is massively greater. For instance “she got the eye” this portrays her as a flirtatious tart who flirts with other men behind her husband back. This makes us think that she is a villain because she is disloyal to her husband that she just married by already flirting with other men.

The other characters -George, Lennie, Slim, and the rest -dislike her tremendously.
For example “Well I think Curley’s married a…..tart”. This is said by Candy who is labelling her to George and Lennie before they had even met her. George also shows that he doesn’t like her and that Lennie shouldn’t as well by saying “Well, you keep away from her, ‘cause she’s a rattrap if I ever seen one. You let Curley take the rap. He let himself in for it. Glove fulla Vaseline,” This demonstrates that just because Curley’s married her makes the lads have to dislike him as well.

When Claire Luce was playing Curley’s Wife Steinbeck sent her a letter about Curley’s Wife, explaining what she is like. He said “she’s is a nice, kind girl, not a floozy.” He is saying that he didn’t mean to make her a floozy and that she was misunderstood by the other characters. He also says “With all this -if you knew her, if you could break down a thousand little defences she had built up, you would find a nice person, a honest person and you would end up loving he.” This shows that she was misunderstood, scared and even frightened at what the world was
like.

My first impression was totally different to what I felt at the end. At the start I thought that she was a tart, wanting attention sort of girl, I thought this from this quote “married two weeks and got the eye.” This made me think that she was over flirtatious and disloyal. However now I think that she is a hero rather than a villain because she survives right till the end of the book. I think this as the book says “I don’t like Curley he aint a nice fella.” This makes me feel sorry for her and implies that she was a victim of society.

Overall I think that Steinbeck wrote the novel of “Of Mice and Men” to get his point across that not everyone was treated fairly. This highlights that discrimination was part of the daily lives in America. Steinbeck did not give Curley’s wife a name as back then women were very low in the level of importance. This show that she was not valued for her personality but for her gender as a women. So Steinbeck used his character to prove his point and to let everyone know that what they were doing was injustice and offense to other people.