Steinbeck portrays Curley's wife at the beginning of the novel as a tramp, a tart that threatens to destroy any male on the ranch. However, her appearances later in the novel that show her to have a more vulnerable, humane side change that. For example, the scene when she confronts Lennie, Candy and Crooks in the stables (109-114) shows her from a completely different perspective. It suggests that she is not entirely malevolent and can be considered innocent, however ultimately she does bring about her own doom. Curley's wife is an insecure, misunderstood and lonely woman caught in a tragic situation.
Another reason their relationship is dangerous is that if John Procter were to prosecute against Abigail Williams saying that she is in fact a witch, Abigail Williams could very easily tell the entire town that she and Procter have been having an affair to get revenge on him. It wouldn’t really affect her too much, but on the contrary, it would ruin his reputation in the town and his relationship with his wife. Later in Act I, Abigail is being “interrogated” by Reverend Hale and she claims “I never sold myself! I’m a good girl! I’m a proper girl!” (Miller 40) in this statement, Abigail is defending herself that she never sold herself to the devil.
We meet John Proctor whom Abigail is in love with. He does not love her back, he is married and has children, but she still keeps believing Proctor will be hers. In line 471 she says: "You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!" Everything she does is for the sake of love. Which is not an excuse at all, but now it makes more sense why she gets into trouble connected with witchcraft and involves the girls in it.
Curley’s wife is a character in ‘Of Mice and Men’ who is initially perceived as flirtatious and promiscuous however as the novel unfolds so does her personality and we begin to understand why she acts the way she does. Much of her behaviour can be traced back to the effects sexism had on women in America in the 1930s. She is lonely, with no other women on the ranch to relate to; her dreams have been lost and buried due to conformity and her final attempt at friendship with Lennie who she sees as someone with boundaries like herself ends in fatality. The phrase ‘lonely in a crowd’ is one that springs to mind when discussing Curley’s wife, she is surrounded by people but just can’t seem to find the attention she desires. When we are primarily introduced to her we can sense she may cause trouble among the men.
She, “did not like him as much as a bride should like her bridegroom,” (Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm). This alone breaks the rules of the fairy tales we all know because there is a mention of whether the girl likes her suitor or not. In most fairy tales marriage is a prize, not something that has to do with actually liking someone. The girl then goes to her fiancé’s house and hears a bird screeching that she should turn back because she is in a murderer’s house. After exploring the dark home, the girl discovers and old woman.
(23.86-87) Aunty sees the Finch name like an exclusive brand – it’s valuable when you can only find it at Bloomingdale’s, but make it available at Wal-Mart and it’ll seem cheap. Aunt Alexandra’s obsession with “What Is Best For the Family” (13.22) – in Scout’s ears, Aunty often speaks in Capital Letters Of Doom – is part of her more general way of classifying people by family heritage. Aunt Alexandra, in underlining the moral of young Sam Merriweather's suicide, said it was caused by a morbid streak in the family. Let a sixteen-year-old girl giggle in the choir and Aunty would say, "It just goes to show you, all the Penfield women are flighty." Everybody in Maycomb, it seemed, had a Streak: a Drinking Streak, a Gambling Streak, a Mean Streak, a Funny Streak.
Another instance is when she asks her mother for the quilts her grandmother had made, her mother said they were for Maggie; Dee's reply was, “Maggie wouldn't appreciate the quilts” and Maggie says, “Dee can have them” (Walker 2441). Furthermore, all of the things Dee ask for she wants to use them for decoration and not for everyday use. Dee also was not educated about her heritage. For instance, her mother called her “Dee” and in return she replied saying her new name was Wangero, followed by the statement, “Dee is dead and I can no longer bear the name of the people that oppress me” (Walker 2440). I believe there was no time during the story that she was oppressed or even mentioned
In ‘Of mice and Men’ Curley’s wife is deliberately not given a name, Steinbeck does this to try and say that she is worthless, irrelevant and purely the property of her husband. Curley’s wife is used as an archetypal for the ideas of America in the 1930s. Other names she is called by the men on the ranch are ‘tramp’, ‘jailbait’ and ‘bitch’; Steinbeck has purposefully used these derogatory terms to show how men saw women at the time. Candy’s in particular is very prejudiced towards her as he says to George and Lennie, ‘I think Curley’s married... a tart.’ This is prejudiced because Candy is known as a gossip and he may just be trying to initiate conversation with George and Lennie and trying to make them see her in his view rather than letting them initially get their own opinion of her based on their experiences rather than his. Curley’s wife clearly feels neglected by her husband and she likes to create attention for herself as she feels she isn’t noticed.
'Curley's wife is a very complex character because she is presented in different personalities at different chapters and in this chapter we see that she desires freedom and fame. Steinbeck presents her in such way that or opinion of her changes through out the novel, first we see her as a flirt then we see her presented in a horrible racist personality and now Steinbeck presents her as Innocent. Steinbeck did this because at this chapter where she dies it's like he wants us to feel sympathy for her because not that she is dead her problems are gone and there is not need for attentions because now she looks relaxed laying down on the hay. The language used in this chapter is very descriptive especially the part when Curley's wife dies, this might be because at the time
The first two lines she says that she does not care if playing with them makes her grow up to be a "bad woman." At this point it is obvious that she is thoroughly bored with the front yard and wants nothing to do with it anymore. In the last two lines she says that would like to wear the same "night-black lace" stockings which means she even is bored of the probable white cloths that her mother makes her ware to be more proper which means she completely wants to break away from her mother's extreme of how she should act and the way she wishes to act. The last line she says that she would like to go down the road with "paint" on her face. Which means she does not care if she gets dirty while playing with the other children.