OfMiceandMenEssay

In the novel ‘Of Mice and Men’, Curley’s Wife is one of the many microcosms of American Society represented in the 1930s. In the award-winning book, John Steinbeck provides many different aspects to the world he was living in at the time he wrote the novel: dreams, hopes and loneliness to name a few, all channelled through different negative mentalities: prejudice, racism and sexism. Curley’s Wife was the one character Steinbeck used to get his point across about sexism with. She is not a complex character, however a ‘significant figure’ may be a better fitting word for the cause. In my essay, I will be giving my opinion on Curley’s Wife’s presentation by Steinbeck; if it presents dislike and/or sympathy, and if so, with how much.

My very first point simply begins with the name of the character that Steinbeck has chosen, ‘Curley’s Wife’. At first, it may seem astonishingly lazy for the author to choose a name for a character in the format how it is, however the lack of a name represents the futility of her presence, and possibly the general mentality of Steinbeck’s generation towards women in the real world (but only to some extent).
Curley's wife lacks a name because of the fact that she does not have her own specific identity. She is just simply regarded as ‘Curley's Wife’.She feels so insignificant and worthless that Steinbeck doesn't even give her the basics of a name. Furthermore, she does not and never fits in with the ranch hands throughout the novel. These facts for ‘Curley’s Wife’ entices the reader to find out whether there will be any more of a sense of identity for the woman, or sympathy for her lack of name as the novel progresses.

Curley’s Wife is introduced in Chapter two of the novel, however in the passage, she is already being judged before she has even been physically introduced to the reader. This is when Candy is conversing with the new arrivals to the Ranch, George and Lennie. Here, Candy says
“I think Curley’s married a … tart”.
In comparison to popular belief of the definition of ‘tart’, one definition in slang terminology states that a tart is ‘A nubile young temptress, who dresses teasingly and provocatively.’ By looking at this definition, it indicates to us that Curley’s Wife’s appearance won’t be much of a welcomed one. The fact that Steinbeck prejudices so early in the novel regarding her may show how fast people in his time were poisoned with the same prejudiced mentality. This statement of intent from Steinbeck to show us what other characters in the novel think of her also shows very quickly that Curley’s Wife won’t be any blessing as the novel progresses.

Her physical introduction to the reader isn’t any better, this is evident when “the rectangle of sunshine in the doorway was cut off.” This excerpt is ominous; the ‘cutting off’ of the light symbolises the amount of trouble she brings. This is confirmed when George tells a staring Lennie to "Don't you even take a look at that bitch. I don't care what she says and what she does. I seen 'em poison before, but I never seen no piece of jail bait worse than her. You leave her be." Lennie’s mental shortcomings prevent him from seeing the blatant danger that George notices, and as usual, Steinbeck uses George as the paternal figure, warning his follower.

Steinbeck’s description of the wife truly shows the reader how desperate she is for attention. It is shown in the following excerpt.
“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.”
The red she wears signifies the danger she brings. At the same time, this also provides a vital link between Curley’s wife with the girl in Weed who wore a red dress that Lennie encountered with. Curley’s Wife is supposedly like an innocent young little girl - her hair in ringlets, and it also makes her sound quite young and essentially absurd under all the make-up; not fitting in. At the same time, the ‘Sausages’ along with ‘red’ represent the lust she has for the new men on the ranch, despite having a husband. The ostrich feathers (also described as red) would have been incredibly expensive at the time of Steinbeck’s writing considering the financial collapse, further confirming her desperacy to look as good as possible, again, despite having a husband. At this point in the novel, Steinbeck is throwing all the dislike towards the female.

Steinbeck makes Curley’s Wife’s sympathetic placement is shown towards the middle of the novel. His use of pairings with Curley’s Wife is not expected. It’s shown when George mentions her towards the middle of the book, saying “Ranch with a bunch of guys on it ain’t no place for a girl, especially like her.” The use of the word ‘girl’ has much more innocence than the word ‘woman’, and this as a result shows us the sympathy Steinbeck has for the microcosm of the female Americans, portrayed through Curley’s Wife.

The lack of sympathy shown for Curley’s wife in the opening chapters of the book asks the question if there will ever be any sympathy portrayed for her in the novel by Steinbeck It seems as if the problem of gender based prejudices are overlooked.Throughout the book, there are a lot of insults thrown at the only woman in the novel. However, Steinbeck takes great care to stress the noun ‘girl’; its used 7 times in the book regarding Curley’s Wife, whereas ‘woman’ is used once and offensive words like ‘bitch’ and ‘tart’ are only used twice.
On the other hand, Steinbeck presents dislike for the Wife throughout the whole novel with the general hastiness by all the characters on the ranch, bar Lennie, who Steinbeck ensures that there is still a sense (albeit a small one) of innocence for him from the poisonous prejudices of society because of his mental state. This is reviewed later in the essay.

In Chapter four of the novel, Steinbeck presents Curley’s wife presented in a new dimension, a threat. Like the situation for white women of Steinbeck’s time, there is a presence of a ‘hierarchy’ regarding blacks (represented by Crooks) and whites (everyone else) that everyone adheres to, regardless of what variation of black/white. There are also subdivisions: white men, white women, black men, black women; their ‘importance’ being listed respectively. During this passage, the whole sense of sympathy is removed from the presentation of Curley’s Wife and the focus is rather placed on her awareness of where she stands in this hierarchy. At her introduction into the passage, Steinbeck shows Crooks and Candy to have no respect for the woman, as they “were scowling down away from her eyes.” The element of her being a swindler is still prominent, with her “parted lips”, however this does not stop the likes of Lennie still looking, “fascinated”. The fascination of Lennie represents the feelings of the ranch men and possibly the white men of Steinbeck’s time; no respect or empathy for the woman, but still deep down wanting a bit of their sexual offerings.
Crooks’ reaction in particular to Curley’s Wife at this point strikes disagreement with the hierarchy previously mentioned. Steinbeck does this to represent how people in his time may have tried to rejig their place in society, with a low chance and rate of success. Steinbeck uses Curley’s wife to strictly reinforce the hierarchy back into shape, evident when she says "Well, you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain't even funny." The structure the author uses is scandalous, how he uses the word ‘nigger’ with capitalisation as if it is a noun, meaning by grammatical english law, that is Crooks’ name. With this technique, Steinbeck may make readers feel more hate towards the woman, however Steinbeck has shown Curley’s Wife to take advantage of the rare occasion where she can be the boss of someone in the same way her husband does.

Steinbeck’s uses Curley’s Wife’s last appearance in the novel to show the reader the true characterisation of Curleys wife; to see if there is anymore to Curley’s wife than a thirsty opportunist. Steinbeck does this by providing new. conclusive dimension to her character, explained with irony, used cleverly by Steinbeck. Curley’s Wife’s constant dream of being in the limelight is impractical because all she ever does is radiate shadows and lure negative attention. An example of this is the, "sunshine in the doorway was cut off." This sentence also foreshadows the end of her life in the barn. Another example is when Lennie reveals that he likes to pet soft things to Curley's wife, who in return offers up her hair, despite him telling her that many things he pet end up dead. This is Steinbeck’s last use of foreshadowing. A fatal one.
Steinbeck’s presentation of the characterisation of Curley’s wife makes us drastically gain more knowledge about her story before her death. The ‘truth’ of her personality, the innocence and her persistence to fulfill her own ‘American Dream’ (which by her death, essentially ends three people’s dreams), regardless of the circumstances.The author truly expresses her character only after death, where her face is described as being, "sweet and young" and the "ache for attention was all gone for her face." The use of the word ache suggests that Curley's wife's need for attention was so strong that it hurt her, after all it did hurt her personality. This is Steinbeck’s sympathetic side, along with the shock of Curley's Wife's death, and the realisation that she was never a genuine ‘tart’ or ‘jailbait’. After her death, the "sun streaks were high on the walls", and the barn is lit again. Here, Steinbeck shows his technique of pathetic fallacy in the levels of light and Curley's wife's changing appearance.

To conclude, I believe that John Steinbeck has provided two different sides of Curley’s wife brilliantly. I believe that his foreshadowing used right at the start of the novel shows how deeply he had thought about the plot. In terms of whether he shows sympathy or not, he conclusively shows us quite late on that Curley’s Wife is humane, like the women she represents in his time of writing. I believe that a lot of dislike is shown throughout the first few chapters when she is essentially a possession to Curley. Towards the end, Curley’s Wife is ironically brought to life with personality, however she physically dies. Because of the manner and aftermath of her death, sympathy must be felt by the reader, an in my opinion, that was Steinbeck’s aim.