“I get lonely” (87). Whenever Curley catches her talking with the other men, he threatens to hurt them. When Curley’s wife talks to Lennie in the barn right before her kills her, Steinbeck really makes a point that she is not a tramp, but is just mistreated. “You can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley, else he gets mad. How’d you like to not talk to anybody?”
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.
He could easily have anyone who caused trouble with him fired because of his position as the Boss’s son. People were afraid to talk to her because it could cost them their job. Although her intentions were probably not harmful, Curley’s wife came across as somewhat promiscuous. The men on the ranch thought she was trouble because of how she acted. They ignored her when she would come by “looking for Curley,” saying nothing more than that he was not there.
Steinbeck’s repeated use of the word red encourages us to condemn Curley’s wife as red is a colour associated with: danger, guilt, sacrifice, sin, passion and anger, often as connected with blood or sex. Another example of her negative presentation along these lines is when Candy says to George ‘You’ll see plenty. She ain’t concealin’ nothing. I never seen nobody like her. She got the eye goin’ all the time on everybody.’ Whilst superficially this would encourage the reader to condemn Curley’s Wife as a tart, one has to consider the bias of the man speaking it and realise that men like Candy have worked on ranches all their lives and therefore their view of women is likely to be inaccurate or exaggerated and prejudiced.
Curley’s wife has taken complete control of the situation by implying that she would get him lynched, this was typical of the time period the book is set in. Crooks goes from being exceptionally confident and self-assured to not saying anything and trying to make himself as small as possible. “Crooks stared hopelessly at her, and then he sat down on his bunk and drew into himself.” This shows that Crooks feels that he is out of place and certainly intimidated by Curley’s wife’s sudden outburst of hostility, he knows he has no hope of winning the confrontation. Curley’s wife enjoys the power she is exercising over Crooks, knowing that she has the power in their relationship and exercising it
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.
The men on the ranch fear Curly's wife. She is a temptress of sorts and she is a possession of Curly’s (hence her name). She projects undertones of sexuality in almost everything she says. The men are lonely which only highlights her danger. They do not want the bosses son, Curly, to get angry.
They are threatened by him, and are scared to go on his property. They find Boo as a character for their amusement, and one with no feelings whatsoever. This is very childlike. Scout also had the immature habit of getting into fistfights that started by the slightest provocation. When Jem had told Scout to stop beating on Walter Cunningham, he asked why she was fighting him in the first place all Scout had to say in response was “He didn’t have any lunch”(Lee,22).
Curley’s wife is never given a name and this makes her sound as if she is curlys possession throughout the novel. She is constantly defined by other individual as a flirt, temptress, poisonous influence and sexual object; reducing her sense of identity Curley’s wife is aware of her sexuality and parades around the ranch in inappropriate clothing that is seemingly designed to attract the maximum amount of attention, although she always claims to be looking for her husband. She wears the colour “red” most noticeably, which is symbolic, of passion and sexually proactive. This symbolic colour acts as a red flag to a bull in the case of Lennie.her flirtatious, which ultimately causes Lennies demise, cannot be denied. However, in reality, this is her way of gaining comfort, affection and attention, all of which is starved of her in her relationship with curly, who only sees her as a trophy to stroke and parade.
PAGES- 80-82 Esther is the one of the main people who uses what her one and only true friend tells her out of trust and uses it against her. Like when that dance came up and Esther said that Chanda shouldn’t hate men just because Isaac Pheto which then triggers Chanda to lash out cause that man touched her and was a father figure which was a scarring moment in her life and Esther just used it as a way to say how Chanda needs to trust men more. PAGES-82-83 -Mrs. Tafa is another infamous figure when it comes to telling secrets when she doesn’t need to and gossiping about everyone she cant get info and detail on. She is constantly pestering Chanda and her mother(how she raises her kids, about her health, about gossip) so when Chanda’s mother starts to really get sick she offers to have her doctor look at her which Chanda agrees to it even though this doctor isnt a doctor but a con man and tricks Mrs. Tafa into thinking she gets her medication from somewhere very fancy but all he does is raise the prices he almost tricks momma but Chanda sees through the lines and catches him he relied on how poor education and lies of