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.
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.
Along with that, she’s married to Curley who she never really loved thus making it even lonelier for her. Also, since she’s married she can’t follow her dream of being a movie star which she confesses to George and Lennie. For instance Curley says to her “Why’nt you tell her to stay the hell home where she belongs?” This shows no one wants Curley’s wife around. Steinbeck even give her a name of her own. That just shows how much he wanted to express her isolation.
Silvana Delgado Roberts Structure in Language and Literature II 04/05/2013 Of Mice and Men Essay The characters in Of Mice and Men have a feeling of loneliness and dissatisfaction throughout the book. Loneliness affects the life of Curley's wife, she has a desperate need to talk to anyone that is not her husband, and he's also the reason she is stuck at the ranch. Candy's loneliness comes from losing his pet that he has had for so many years, and he also fears that he will get fired. It also has an effect on Crooks, who does not spend time with people because he is judged and mistreated by the workers in the ranch. John Steinbeck creates the characters in Of Mice and Men with a theme of loneliness
Steinbeck’s use of one female character called Curley’s wife is a very recognisable character, but with Steinbeck never giving her a name, indicates that she has no identity between many of the male ranch workers. Also, the use of Curley’s wife symbolizing all the women in the 1930’s tells us that women had no position within the working world. On the other hand, women were seen to be well appreciated, especially if they were married. Whereas Curley’s wife wonders around the bunk houses full of men trying to act flirtatious as we have established in the previous paragraphs. In the second interaction we have with Curley’s wife.
Also, her lack of intelligence has left her with no job and an inability to get a job. In the story, there are many reasons contributing to Jean’s feeling of emptiness and difficulty in her life. To begin, her husband, Ross feels as though he has married beneath himself, and he does not love her anymore. Their marriage was most likely caused by Jean getting pregnant with their son, which made Ross feel like he had to marry her out of force. In the story, Ross specifically tells their son, Kevin that he should try not to marry beneath himself because he will end up stuck in the same situation as him.
Candy explains this by saying that Curly is “like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys…he’s mad at ‘em because he ain’t a big guy,” (Steinbeck, Page 26). He is unable to seek reassurance from the other men on the ranch because they are, in a way, afraid of him because of the power he holds over them by being the boss’s son. Curly is lonely as he cannot socialize with the men in a carefree way, nor can he be entirely comfortable with his wife, who was never truly in love with him. However, the reader is never asked to sympathize with Curly, nor does the author ever portray his disappointment in a straightforward way, opting instead to make him angry and confrontational to show that
“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
Bonnie Smith Yackel's mother is deemed to be an unemployed person according to the government. However, not everyone in the social security office uses correct terminology. The person answering her in the SS office was rude enough to plainly state how her mother, Martha Smith never has worked. If I was the daughter I would be extremely offended at the statement that person just made. And she was and she goes on to explain her mother's life to the reader so she can prove this person wrong and justify her mother's long hardworking career on the farm.