Curley's wife is a complex, main character in John Steinbeck's novella, "Of Mice and Men" She is introduced at the beginning and ultimately causes the end of the novella, her naivity and flirtatiousness leading to her inevitable death at the hand of Lennie, confused and scared by her forwardness and eventual unrest. By; Phameno She is first introduced by Candy, the swamper, who describes her from his perpsective to George and Lennie. The fact that Curley's wife is introduced through rumours means that the reader already has a biased opinion of Curley's wife before she even enters the section. Candy mentions that she, "got the eye" explaining that she is flirtatious and immoral in that wea re hit with the fact that she flirts with other men immediately after it is stated thatshe is married to Curley. Already, the reader is introduced to the idea that Curley's wife is an immoral "tart" which is strengthened upon her first appearance, which follows shortly after.
How is Curley’s wife presented and developed? The character we’ll be analysing in this essay derives from a book written by Steinbeck called ‘Of Mice and Men’. This book was written during the Great Depression in the 1930s and Steinbeck relates the life of the characters featured in the book to the life during that time of struggle. In this particular analysis, we’ll be focusing on Curley’s wife. When we first meet Curley’s wife, Steinbeck makes her appear very flirtatious and dangerously beautiful.
She also acts flirtatiously in front of the other ranch workers. Through her physical appearance and her own actions, Candy’s description of her seems very accurate. Our negative feelings towards her begin to change when she enters Crooks’ residence. Curley’s wife enters asking for Curley and receives cold hearted responses from the men; she then goes on to talk about her loneliness and isolation, and then begins to start verbally attacking the men and aims the reason for doing so, towards Curley. After Crooks asks her to leave, she threatens him, she says “listen nigger, you know what I can do to you if you open your trap?” she discriminates him and puts him down, so she feels in power.
Act I Scene I: Lady Sneerwell, a wealthy young widow, and her hireling Snake discuss her various scandal-spreading plots. Snake asks why she is so involved in the affairs of Sir Peter Teazle, his ward Maria, and Charles and Joseph Surface, two young men under Sir Peter's informal guardianship, and why she has not yielded to the attentions of Joseph, who is highly respectable. Lady Sneerwell confides that Joseph wants Maria, who is an heiress, and that she wants Charles. Thus she and Joseph are plotting to alienate Maria from Charles by putting out rumors of an affair between Charles and Sir Peter's new young wife, Lady Teazle. Joseph arrives to confer with Lady Sneerwell.
Then George warned Lennie to keep away from her; “Listen to me you crazy bastard, don’t you even look at that bitch. I don’t care what she says and what she does, I seen ‘em poison before but never seen no piece of jail bait worse than her.” Curley’s wife causes tension on the ranch because she annoys and embarrasses Curley by wandering around the ranch flirting. This makes Curley angry and feel humiliated because his wife is always seeking the attention of other men. Curley got angry with the other worker because his wife is often disappearing and he felt as if the other man laughed at him because he could not keep control of his 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.
How does Steinbeck present Curley’s Wife in the novel ‘Of Mice and Men’? Steinbeck presents Curley’s Wife in the novel Of Mice and Men by pointing her out in a negative way; this is how most men would see women in the 1930s. She is judged on her appearance and the way she presents herself to other characters on the ranch. Curley’s Wife is described on how she looks; she is described as wearing red, which shows a symbol of danger. By wearing the red throughout this relates to how she always dreamed of being in the movies and fulfilling her dreams.
She sleeps with Albert and even has the audacity to ask Celie if it’s okay. Even though Celie doesn’t like her husband even hates it is not okay to do so. These are all examples of Shug’s harlot like sex escapades. In the middle of the story Shug begins to be a better person by being a friend for Celie. Shug helps Celie with her abusive husband.
Instead, she is called a girl. ‘Leaned against the doorframe so that her body was thrown forward” this quote creates an image of her behavior in a flirtatious manner and shows her provocative body language. Steinbeck shows the reader that Curley's wife is trouble; she's very flirtatious and dangles herself in front of the men on the ranch. Then the men gets afraid if Curley
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 had full rouged lips and wide spaced eyes, heavily made up,’ which suggests that the author wanted us to presume the worst of her before she’d even spoken and we set ourselves up for her to be a character we feel a lot of resentment for. The fact that her ‘finger nails were red,’ along with ‘red mules’ and ‘red ostrich feathers’ shows us how Steinbeck’s use of colour goes well alongside her sexual appeal. The colour red is used in two ways. One is a strong representation of love or a form of attraction, the other is the inner appeal of sexual preference and seduction. The intention of making the reader perceive her early on as a ‘tart’ foreshadows that something later is going to happen and there could be trouble.