Explore The Ways In Which Curley's Wife Is Present Essay

One salient detail regarding Curley's wife and Steinbeck's use of language to develop her character is the fact that she has been given no name.   Thus, she seems less a person than a type.   With heavily made up face and "full rouged lips" and fingernails that are red to match her red shoes that have "little bouquets of red ostrich feathers," Curley's wife assumes the role of temptress as she

put her hands behind her back and leaned against the door frame so that her body was thrown forward.

And, when Lennie looks down her body, she "smiled archly and twitched her body."   This action motivates George to warn Lennie that she is "jail bait" and "a rat-trap" who is "poison."

Further in Steinbeck's novella, Curley's wife seems restless, eager.   When she arrives at the stable, she "breathed strongly, as though she had been running."   She also proves herself a shrew:

"They left all the weak ones here," she said finally....You're all scared of each other, that's what.   Ever' one of you's scared the rest is goin' to get something on you."

When Candy "covers up" for Curley when she asks what has happened to his hand, she becomes contemptuous of the men:"You bindle bums think you're so damn good." Then, when Crooks tries to make her leave, she turns upon him,

"Listen,....You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?....I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain't even funny."

And, yet, she is filled with self-pity, for she reveals to Lennie,

"I tell you I ain't use to livin' like this.   I coulda made somethin' of myself...."

A temptress and a shrew, Curley's wife, although a threat to the men, is yet like them, lonely and mean from her forced alienation.