Her ‘cotton house dress and red mules’ along with her ‘full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes’ was enough for any man to fall for her, but added with ‘Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages’ Lennie could not resist. So when she allows Lennie to pet her she is causing trouble for both of them. This incident leads to both of deaths. Her own insecurities lead to her being partially responsible for Lennie’s death. The second character to blame for Lennie’s death is Lennie.
He uses symbolism when she is first introduced; “Both men glanced up, for the rectangle of light was cut off.” The reference to the light can suggest that she cuts off the light because she is a negative character, and/or she takes away anything, which is good. The description of Curley’s wife starts with “a girl” that suggests that she appears looking sweet and innocent, childlike even. During the description, the colour red is repeated several times, “rouged lips”, ”her fingernails were red”, “red mules” and “red ostrich feathers”. This is a key thing because usually the colour red means; love, danger, blood, prostitutes – red light district, and passion. Red is also a primary colour in which young children are attracted to, this could explain why Lennie likes her so much; he has a childlike manner.
Even though we see a sense of power with Curley, we are then brought to the idea that she is ‘giving men the eye’ which makes us dislike her for we assume then that she is being unfaithful and portraying her as a floozy. I think that Steinbeck uses this technique as it allows the reader to build up a character portfolio of the men on the ranch relationship to Curley’s wife and shows that there is a fear when it comes to her and
Despite the warnings that she should go straight to her Grandmother’s, Little Red Riding Hood becomes distracted by feminine pursuits, portrayed through the compound sentence “…gathering nuts, running after butterflies, and gathering bouquets of little flowers.” This emphasises her age and vulnerability as she isn’t aware of her surroundings and the danger they can impose. Her naivety is further displayed through the present participle ‘believing’ in relation to the sound of the wolf’s ‘big voice’ being her grandmother’s, despite noticing many ‘odd’ features such as “Grandmother, what big ears you have!” and
Artificial. | | | |spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in | | | | |little rolled clusters, like sausages. She wore a cotton house dress and red | | | | |mules…Her voice had a nasal, brittle quality.’ | | |Ch 2 |p 54 |‘Don’t you even take a look at that bitch…I never seen no piece of jail bait |George sees her as a threat (jail bait).
In Medusa, another emotion is bitterness. ‘I stared in the mirror, love gone bad’. This shows bitterness because she is bitter about the way ‘love’ has turned out. It is almost an oxymoron, because society teaches us that love is good and should be sought after, whereas what she is saying goes against this. This intensifies the emotion and reinforces how much of a ‘mess’ their relationship is in.
This may well be true, of course, but there is more to her than what Candy sees. She is an uneducated, foolish woman trapped in a man's world. We see her in person, later in the chapter, when she appears at the bunkhouse door. "She had full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red ... She wore a cotton house dress and red mules, on the insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers."
Paragraph 2 Candy’s first description of Curley’s wife is reinforced by Steinbeck’s description of her on page 53. She is presented by Steinbeck as having ‘full, rouged lips’ and ‘eyes heavily made up’ with ‘red fingernails’. She is also described as wearing a ‘cotton house dress’ with ‘red mules’ with bouquets of red ostrich feathers on the insteps. The amount of red incorporated into her outfit is very symbolic of her passionate and dangerous persona. When Steinbeck describes Curley’s wife as having hair hung in little rolled clusters; this is similar to her husband’s style of hair which is very Curly.
Next we are given a full physical description of Curley’s wife. Steinbeck paints a picture of a ‘heavily made up’ woman who dresses like a prostitute to try and gain the attention of the male workers on the ranch. Curley’s wife almost looks ridiculous with her ‘sausage’ like curls and her red shoes with ostrich feathers. He describes her ‘full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes’ and her red fingernails. Perhaps this mask she wears is hiding a more sensitive character.
Shakespeare uses the term "ewe" to describe Desdemona because a ewe is thought to be a female sheep that cannot be touched. He uses "white" to show Desdemona's purity and innocence. Venetian women are thought to be flirtatious and loose but by describing Desdemona as a "white ewe", Iago is trying to make Brabantio think that Othello has trapped his perfect daughter. By using this, Shakespeare has already prepared the audience for what is to come later on in the play. The next reason for this break up was Iago.