How Steinbeck Portrays Curley's Wife in of Mice and Men

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Steinbeck is often viewed as a writer who wanted to give a voice to the marginalised characters within his society. He also explores the social issues prevalent to the time and they were abhorrent. An examples of this includes Racism. Through the novel Steinbeck represents Curley’s wife as a lonely, flirtatious and abandoned character. There are 3 key themes in this novel, this includes the American dream to go to California to start their own farm and to eat of “the fatta the lan” meaning that the farm that they dreamed of would give everything they needed to live and another key theme is the desire for human connection as Curley’s wife is treated with no respect with everyone ignoring her but the last and most important theme is loneliness, Curley’s wife is a representation of all of the three key themes. Curley’s wife was only married for about two weeks and in those days women were literally robbed of their identity when they get married and are just as if they are an object to their husbands, and since she has no name she is shaped trough the language as an inanimate object with no voice in anything she does and there is no mention of any other girl/women on the farm which shows her loneliness. When Curley’s wife goes to Crooks’ room (a black guy who sorts out the horses), it is clear she is feeling frustrated, agitated and aware of the bad marriage between her and Curley. From the beginning we see she remains isolated and removed from the men as she was only “looking in” to the room. “looking in” keeps being repeated throughout the novel to show that she is an outsider as she doesn’t fit in with the men on the farm, a girl with a house dress on a farm with a lot of men getting all dirty, it just doesn’t work. Steinbeck also shows that she is lonely as she is stuck in a house all day bored and having to listen to her ignorant husband say “how Curley’s gonna

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