Of Mice and Men

I think there are many characters that stand out as being weak in many different ways in the book with either physical or mental weaknesses, and occasionally both. Candy clearly is easily dictated as Carlson proved, but I think the presentation of Curley's wife and Crooks is more intriguing.

Steinbeck also presents Curley's wife as a doll 'her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages' which has the effect of objectifying her. We also find out that Curley's wife is used in the book. She was picked up by somebody who said they were going to make her a movie star, and then they didn't send her a letter, showing how she was a 'pushover' and naïve, and then Curley found her, and made her his wife, and that is the only identity Steinbeck gives her in the book(as the wife of Curley) which I think emphasises he does to show her as an inferior by not giving her a personal identity so that we cannot relate to her- she is objectified.

Possibly due to having little experience with other men, Curley's wife married very badly, and doesn't get on with Curley 'Sure I gotta husban...swell guy, ain't he? She says sarcastically, and added to Curley's paranoia that she will cheat on him (shown on page 62-Slim said 'well you been asking me too often. I'm getting God damn sick of it') and in addition, due to the fact that she is the only girl on the ranch she is isolated and very lonely. Curley's wife hangs around the bunk house, possibly in order to make friends with the workers, but appears to have weaknesses in her skill in conversation, so finds the easiest way to communicate is by flirtation, and as a result she makes few friends on the ranch as they are wary of her, despite her not showing any definite intention of wanting to cheat on Curley; this leaves Curley's wife with the 'losers' on the ranch: ' bunch of bindle-stiffs', while the rest of the men go out and have a good time and she is not even accepted by this group 'she looked from one face to another, but