The Relationship Between Curley's Hostility In Of Mice And Men

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English: Of Mice and Men In this essay I will explore how John Steinbeck the author of the novella Of Mice and Men, portrays Curley’s hostility. One of the ways Steinbeck portrays Curley’s hostility is through his appearance. “A thin young man, with a brown face with brown eyes”. This tells the reader that Curley is quite nondescript and that there is nothing really distinctive about him. The word “thin” tells the reader that he isn’t necessarily weak but just in build he is quite slender. This differs to the stereotype in the 1930’s that men had to be ‘Manly men’ meaning tall strong and masculine. Another way Steinbeck portrays Curley’s hostility through appearance is when he writes “Like the boss, he wore high heeled boots”. This tells us that Curley probably wears these to lower his insecurities about himself i.e. his height. The phrase ‘like the boss’ indicates that he wishes to imitate his father by wearing these boots and hopefully gain the same amount of respect and power. Furthermore, Steinbeck portrays Curley’s hostility through his…show more content…
The relationship between Curley and his wife is another element that fuels his hostility throughout the novel. “He spends half the time looking for her and the rest of the time she’s looking for him.” This tells us that their relationship isn’t very stable. It also hints at the fact that because Curley’s wife gives some workers on the ranch ‘the eye’ he is quite paranoid that she’ll cheat, thus one of the reasons he’s always asking Slim about her whereabouts. The other reason being that because in those days women were meant to stay at home to cook, clean and look after the house in general; Curley didn’t like it that his wife didn’t do any that and instead hung around the ranch all the time and his American dream was coming crashing down. The American dream was the hope to have a housewife, a piece of land and your own home something that just wasn’t working out for

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