“If you can’t keep control of your god-damn wife what do you want me to do about it?” Curley’s wife’s behaviour on the ranch angered Curley so much that he often vented his anger on the other men because Lennie was laughing to himself. Curley got self-conscious and started a fight because Curley thought Lennie was laughing at him. Curley’s wife was used to convey the misery of a woman’s life on a ranch. She was lonely because no one wanted to speak to her or listen to her. She was desperate for attention and someone to like her.
The men on the ranch fear Curly's wife. She is a temptress of sorts and she is a possession of Curly’s (hence her name). She projects undertones of sexuality in almost everything she says. The men are lonely which only highlights her danger. They do not want the bosses son, Curly, to get angry.
Steinbeck presents the character of Curley’s Wife as manipulative, however I feel he only does this to make us feel sympathy to Curley’s Wife and women in the 1930s. The fact that Curley’s wife has to be manipulative to get attention which she is so starved for does not kill any sympathy that the reader could have for her but drives it so that the reader is more sympathetic. I also feel that Steinbeck uses Curley’s wife as a reflection on men in the 1930s as they are manipulative yet despise Curley’s wife because she is manipulative; they do not realise that it is them that made her so in the first place Quote: Curly's wife is flirtatious throughout the book. Basically whenever she shows up she is flirtatious because this is all she has. Curly's wife is powerless in a masculine world, Steinbeck doesn't even give her a name; she is simply Curley's property.
And what is a greater crime than making women hate themselves for reasons that they cannot change? The “anti-narcissism” that men have made consists of women not liking anything about them and wishing that they were the opposite sex just to get more respect. They don’t have any self-respect for themselves because of the nonsense that the “dominant” males have fed them their whole lives. This makes everything hostile for women and while men are busy controlling what the rules are and what can be published, women are struggling with this internal conflict that they’ll never get far in life because of their sex. Cixous boldly declares that women have been “kept in the dark.” What is this darkness you may ask?
I feel bad and sad for the victims, because a woman can’t do anything when a man punches her. “Abusers often attempt to control and isolate victims in an effort to guard the secret of abuse and because of their jealously of any attention their partners may give or receive from family, friends, or coworkers” (Gagné 19). As the time passes, women will have bruising, bleeding, and scars that will never heal. A man hits a woman probably because he wants to act “macho”. He might be drunk or he only does it because he likes it.
This further suggests her need to overcompensate in her image as an attempt to impress the ranch workers and her husband. The reader may infer that Curley’s wife succeeds in her attempt for their attention when slim addresses her as “good-lookin” in a friendly manner, however we notice George stays constantly wary of her and treats her with a similarly brusque air “well he aint now.” Steinbeck uses this short and abrupt sentence to perhaps highlight George’s intolerance of her, and her dangerously flirty personality. Steinbeck prefigures the death of Curley’s wife, later in the novel, also through his physical description of her. This is shown through use of the colour red in her; “rouged lips”; “little bouquets of red ostrich feathers” and “red mules” perhaps meaning her association with the colour red holds connotations of danger and death. Her death is also prefigured in the very first introduction of her entering the bunkhouse “the rectangle of sunshine in the doorway was cut off” Steinbeck presents the sunshine as being part of Curley’s wife’s’ ‘dream’ and perhaps being used as a metaphor for the freedom and happiness she longs for, however when the light is “cut
She chose to put this particular poem right in the centre of the collection because it is the most taboo poem and shows just how much men can influence women in relationships or even just for sex. A good example of this is ‘I went mad for the sex’ from ‘The Devils Wife’ shows she is with him for the sex and she’d do anything to keep getting it. The poems in the first half of the collection the women always escape from the betrayal of men take control. ‘Delilah’ and ‘Mrs Quasimodo’ are good examples of this as in ‘Delilah’ she cuts off his hair, ‘Then with deliberate, passionate hands, I cut every lock of his hair’ shows she took control of the situation and did it as a duty because his hair is what makes him strong, and without it he has nothing. Also ‘I fastened a chain to the door’ is ironic as she is trying to escape from being controlled by him yet she is ‘chaining’ herself inside the door so she cannot escape.
Curley’s wife essay Curley’s wife is a character of wide complex and diversity. Her role slowly unwinds and develops throughout the course of the novel, constantly changing the reader’s opinion of her due to her ambiguous characteristics. We see through the novel that in 1930’s America women were generally treated with contempt through the course of the novel and as a general theme. Steinbeck depicts females as ‘trouble makers’ who bring ruin on men; Curley’s wife who walks the ranch as a temptress, seems to be a prime example of this destructive tendency. Women were looked upon as inferior; and incapable of the skills men were, so a woman’s role was mainly housework and nothing with manual requirement.
The final line “Who could not say, ‘Tis pity she’s a whore?” can be seen as directed towards her and so she is blamed for everything that has occurred. Throughout the play she is seen as quite powerful and headstrong by refusing many marriage proposals and being quite stubborn in doing so. However, she is reduced to a weak being however upon dying which is a culmination of her passions. It is perceived that women are a danger to men and to society as a whole and so Giovanni’s actions are to be blamed not on himself, but on Annabella because of the beauty she possesses. Giovanni states that Annabella’s “lips would tempt a saint” thus showing the corruption her presence inflicts upon even the supposed innocent of men.
Her friend doesn’t appear to be proud of boastful in the story and doesn’t seem to care that Madame Loisel is poorer than her. Madame Loisel is just embarrassed of the life she lives that she doesn’t want anyone around her to see who she is and how she lives. Within the story, the reader gets the sense that she is so envious of the life that others have she doesn’t realize what she has and that she is so concerned with wanting materialistic objects that she is making herself miserable and unhappy. Her husband who notices how unhappy she is brings home an invitation to a ball hoping to make her happy. Instead, Madame Loisel becomes even more distraught because she doesn’t think she has anything that is acceptable to wear to such a formal occasion.