Role Of Curley's Wife In Of Mice And Men By John Steinbeck

At the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had three big duties to fulfil. Out of the three, naming everything was the most important. History says that a name has a lot of power. It creates a sense of identity and character that can never be taken away from you. In the book, leaving Curley’s wife nameless was a deliberate action by Steinbeck. Curley’s wife was the only major female character in the book. One reason the author may not have given her a name is because she didn’t need one to be distinguished from the other characters. The men had names to be able to tell them apart and Steinbeck tried to keep them as simple as possible. Steinbeck is a writer of social issues. At the time of this book being written, the historical role of women in society
was different than it is now. The lack of name shows that that Curley’s wife was nugatory compared to the men in the story. The men thought of her as a distraction or even as danger in Lennie’s case. George told Lennie to stay away from her to stay out of trouble. The book never talks about how Curley's wife seems discriminated by her gender like it does in Crooks case with his race. Crooks admits to him being lonely because of his race. Whereas Curley’s wife talks about being lonely and how she could’ve ended up having such a better life if she hadn’t married Curley, “I coulda made somethin’ of myself…He says I could go with the show’”(Steinbeck 88), but she never blamed it on her gender. That may indicate that it was in the norm to treat women this way and think of them as a disturbance.