Her life on a ranch in the 1930s, during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl is even worse because she is the only woman. Her life is surrounded my men who give her no respect. Throughout the story she is disrespected by them and after a series of events unfold, she ends up caught in a situation that she cannot escape. Curley’s wife is introduced into the book by the men as petty, cruel, and conceited. The men make her seem like she was a bad person, but in reality she was just lonely.
Curly's wife is so lost, lonely and insignificant that Steinbeck does not even give her a name. She spends the novel trying to find company under the guise of looking for her husband. Curly is in fact an intensely abusive person with a major case of small-guy complex. The irony is that while she pretends to be looking for Curly, she is actually trying to avoid him. The men on the ranch fear Curly's wife.
“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.
Do the characters get what they deserve in the End? During the novella of mice and men Curley’s wife is alienated, spoken behind her back, called vile names and singled out from the rest of the ranch, since she is the only woman there. Throughout the novella she is constantly giving hints on how lonely she is even in her own marriage, by the end of the book she is accidentally killed and freed from the life she so dearly hated. However, another view on her death could be negative since when she dies she does not get the life she deserves for being kept in a place she doesn’t want to stay or even she does deserve her death since she is vile for not committing to her marriage vows by being a coquette. Curley’s wife is clearly a very unhappy
Almost everyone on the ranch is lonely and she symbolizes this. The audience would come to believe she is a weak isolated character however, the men are fearful of her. She is the wife of their boss. She has power and this power creates fear among the ranch workers. She is both in charge and screaming for attention.
The phrase ‘no sleep’ is a euphemism for death and suggests that she will pay for what she has done. This is similar to Farmers Bride as he is frustrated that she will not interact with him. This is shown when he says ‘three summers since I chose a maid’; this suggests that she has been avoiding him for the past three years, which is frustrating for him. The word ‘maid’ implies that she is still a virgin, suggesting that his frustration could also be sexual In Sister Maude italics are used to emphasise her hatred for her sister Maude. This is used in the last line of the poem ‘Bide you with death and sin’; this symbolised her outrage at her sister and her hope that she will pay by going to hell after death.
Character Analysis of John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums” In the story “The Chrysanthemums”, John Steinbeck creates a character through which he shows us, how back in the 1930s, because of society’s isolation, alienation and mistreatment of women, womanhood felt synonymous with being trapped. In order to understand the character better, we must first know the “real” Elisa Allen. At first, she is a woman whose hopes for a better life are raised by a stranger she meets. After the stranger uses her and crushes her hopes, we see her for who she really is – a bitter woman who lives a forever unfulfilled life of routine, boredom and hopelessness. Steinbeck uses Elisa’s character to depict the fighting for equal rights.
Her dealing with these individuals has caused her to become very resentful, bitter and jealous. She was very jealous of her sister Stella-Rondo. In the text Sister stated “I was getting along fine with Mama, Papa-Daddy and Uncle Rondo until my sister Stella-Rondo just separated from her husband and came back home again” ( Welty, 367). This statement that Sister made insinuates that she does not want her sister around. And would be thankful if she went back to where she came from.
The purpose of John Steinbeck's story is to make readers aware of the suffering women endure in marriage relationships. Throughout the story Jim Moore degrades his wife Jelka by treating her like an object or possession. She is continuously seen as an animal by the way she is described and treated by her husband. Early in the story we find out that Jim has been going to a local establishment known as the Three Star to meet with other women. When the girls at the Three Star ask Jim where his wife is, he replies, “Home in the barn” (Steinbeck 5).
Maggie was very uneasy around her sister; her mother tells her anxiousness in regard to Dee’s visitation: “Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe” (119). Dee undermines her sister, not always knowing what type of impact she impresses upon Maggie. Dee does not appreciate her sister or her mother, both of which is barely educated and lives in a poor, dilapidated home. In fact, Dee had her own way of making this noticeable in one instance when she stood off in the distance while their first home burned down with her mother and sister inside (121). She does not feel comfortable taking on the old fashioned lifestyle her mother and sister do.