Curley’s wife also uses her body to attract the men. This is shown when “She put her hands behind her back and then leaned against the door frame so that her body was thrown forward.” She acts as if she is a tart and causes a bad influence on the men who work at the ranch.
Curley’s wife acts very provocative, playful, childish and flirtatious, this is because she is very lonely and has no power at all. Nobody knows the real person she is because no one ever dares to get in trouble with her. Curley’s wife is often presented negatively by Steinbeck such as when she is cruel to crooks after his hopes have been raised by the dream. This is easily shown when Curley’s wife snaps at Crooks. “keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on the tree so easy.” Curley’s wife is being racist because she is so angry and so lonely. She is powerless on the ranch and the only person she has power is on Crooks who is black. She is basically just exercising her power on him because she can get him lynched on a tree. She uses the word Nigger which shows that she is racist. This shows that the society in the 1930s was racist.
Curley’s relationship with his wife seems as if they don’t even like each other. This is shown when Curley’s wife says “I don’t’ like Curley, he ain’t a nice fella.” Curley’s wife is also scared of Curley due to his fearsome power and a brutish man. She only married Curley because she wanted to get away from her Mother. The only reason she wanted to leave her Mother was because she thought her Mother was taking her letters which she thought were from a Movie Star who she met. She also wanted to live a peaceful life. Curley does not really seem to care about his wife that much, this is clearly proven when Curley says ““Come on, you guys’” This clearly shows that Curley does not even care about his wife’s death at all, he cannot even spare a minute with his wife. All Curley does is look at her and just walks out of the barn. Curley’s wife was happy with what Lennie did to Curley. This is shown when Curley’s wife talks to Lennie “I’m glad you bust up Curley a little bit.” Steinbeck is suggesting that she does not like Curley that much though she still cares about him or else she would not use the word ‘little bit’.
The attitude of the ranch hands to her are they all think she is a tart, they call her all sorts of offensive labels such as ‘jailbait’, ‘tart’ etc. This suggests that Steinbeck is trying to say that Curley’s wife is actually not any of those offensive words. She is just a normal woman, who only acts like that because everybody thinks she is. In the olden days and sometimes now, the people use to not change their attitude at all.
Lennie finds Curley’s wife attractive but George finds her as a trouble maker. This is shown when George says to Lennie “Jesus, what a tramp.” Therefore George warns Lennie to keep away from Curley’s wife because george considers her to be a trap. This is also shown after Curley’s wife had just met the men in the ranch. “I never seen no piece of jail bait worse than her. You leave her be.” This foreshadows something might happen between Lennie and Curley’s wife.
Curley’s wife has a dream (wish) that she wants to become an actress and play role in Hollywood. She said that she met a Hollywood actor who said he will put Curley’s wife in Hollywood, but never happened. Maybe after all that possibly could have been a dream. Men in those times just used women, they just tricked woman for pleasure. In the social way, all the ranch hands don’t really want to talk to her because they all think she is a tart. As Curley’s wife says “If I catch any one man, and he’s alone, I get along fine with him. But just let two of the guys get together an’ you won’t talk.” Steinbeck is clearly suggesting that not a single person would trust each other on the ranch.
The presentation of Curley’s wife’s death was astonishing due to the way Steinbeck described her after the death. Steinbeck is suggesting that she was under pressure, trying to gain attention and she was mean. Steinbeck described her as she was “the meanness and the planning’s and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face. She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young” This suggest that she was under pressure all the time but when she died everything was just normal. It also suggests that the entire ache for attention was just gone and a simple beautiful woman was lying dead. Overall Steinbeck is suggesting that all the characters are cruel because they’re powerless and they all want to exercise their power.
