The short story “The Chrysanthemums” favors and differs from the story “The Necklace” in many different ways. Both of these stories are centered upon an unhappy marriage life. The wives of each story are unhappy with the way their husbands seem content with the same lifestyle. In “The Chrysanthemums”, a tinker comes to Elisa’s house at first annoying her with ransom question, but then opening her eyes to realizing she should not settle for being content and try harder to become happy with her life. With the conversation becoming more exciting, Elisa begins to feel appreciated for once and has an immediate attraction for the tinker.
Part b - What ideas about society does Steinbeck present using Curley in the novel? A way that Steinbeck presents ideas about the society through Curley is shown by how determined he is to prove his masculinity to the other men on the ranch. He has done this by marrying an attractive woman. Throughout the book she is only referred to as "Curley's wife" by all characters in the novel, which emphasizes the idea of Curley owning her as a possession. Curley refuses to let her talk to anyone on the ranch and isolating her from everyone else which can tell us how men in the 1930s objectified and only used women to portray themselves strongly.
She is an example as she is the only woman on the ranch and tries to make friends by flirting with the other men. Ina quote she says "Well I ain’t told this to nobody before. Maybe I ought’n to. I don’t like Curley. He ain’t a nice fella.
When the boss's daughter-in-law Came inside the barn, Lennie suddenly wished that he Wasn't on that farm. Lennie knew that the girl would get Him in tons of trouble. So when she asked him any questions, All he did was mumble. The girl told Lennie her hair was soft. She told him he could feel it.
It states that her friends say “She is such a good mother: She adores her children (Lawrence, 162).” Paul is determined to win his mother’s love by gambling and goes on a “mad little journey (Lawrence, 165)” in order to try to prove to his mother that he is lucky and she could love him. “The Rocking Horse Winner” shows diminished family connections/values throughout the story. Paul’s mother feels as though she is empty inside because the family lacks wealth, and she believes that without that you have no identity. It is this emptiness that makes her think that she cannot love her children. The mother lavishes the children with gifts such as the rocking horse and doll houses in order to try to compensate for her lack of love for them.
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
Medieval women are typically considered to be young beautiful ladies who are damsels in distress, awaiting their knight to come rescue them. “The Canterbury Tales” reveals that this notion is far from the truth. Refuting this idea in the novel is The Wife of Bath. She is overtly manipulative by using her exuding sexuality. Her husbands, all five of them were teased with sex, but they had to provide luxuries that she desperately craved for.
‘She put her hand behind her back and leaned against the doorframe, so that her body was thrown forward!’ this pose against the doorframe is seductive. She is behaving like this as George and Lennie are new men on the ranch, therefore they do not know she is trouble. However Candy soon sets George and Lennie straight about her promiscuous personality. ‘Both men glanced up, for the rectangle of sunshine in the doorway was cut off.’ Light represents goodness in life; the fact Curly’s wife has shut the sunlight out demonstrates there is no hope for the attitude towards woman to change. This also for shadow’s the type of attention Curly’s wife will receive.
She's the only female character in the novel, and she's never given a name and is only referred to in reference to her husband. The men on the farm refer to her as a “tramp,” a “tart,” and a “looloo.” Dressed in fancy, feathered red shoes, she represents the temptation of female sexuality in a male-dominated world. She is a simple object or possession belonging to her husband and this shows the severity of the sexual discrimination in America in 1930s. I believe Steinbeck would have thought of her not as a person but a symbol. Almost everyone on the ranch is lonely and she symbolizes this.
Additionally, the bouquets of ostrich feathers, also described as red, on the insteps of her shoes would have been extremely expensive in the times Of Mice and Men was set; and that Curley's wife not only wears them on her feet but in the middle of the 'Dust Bowl' expresses her desperate need for attention as she is willing to possibly ruin her best shoes in order to entice the ranchers, despite the fact that she has a husband. Not only is