Curley’s Wife is constantly being controlled by Curley. However, Curley cannot control her because he is always trying to find her as well and she is an ongoing concern for him. Ever since Curley's Wife got married, she has felt depressed. She makes use of her beauty to get the ranch workers to talk to her. However, the other men dislike her because she is seen as trouble. If Curley were to find out that the ranch workers were speaking to his Wife, he would fight them and then get them fired. This shows how protective Curley is over his wife. Curley's Wife is a manipulative, flirtatious woman who cannot escape her marriage to Curley. She had ignored her mother's advice about her future; thinking that she will be a star in a movie but instead she got married which she was not mentally prepared for; especially since she chose Curley to be her husband. She expresses her loneliness to Lennie when she says, "You can talk to people, but I can't talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad. How'd you like not to talk to anybody?"Curley's Wife is frustrated because her husband denies her the freedom to go out and talk with the others on the ranch. This is because Curley treats her as more of a possession rather than a human being. This portrayal in the novel triggers loneliness again of Curley’s Wife because she has no-one to give her emotions to and it’s all locked up inside her. This makes her depressed because she cannot get her feelings across to anyone. This control is also shown with Lennie and George. Lennie listens to anything George says even if it as stupid as jumping off a cliff.
Curley's wife is unnamed for several reasons. Curley's wife does not have a name because she does not have her own identity. She is just Curley's wife. She has no real sense of purpose. She does not fit in with the ranch workers. She lives a lonely existence. She has no friends. Curley's wife; as the boss's son's flirtatious wife, she is not identified by any other name); wanders around the ranch searching for some human contact. All that Curley's wife had was a dream. She is really considered as a nobody. She has always dreamed to be a somebody. But, all she can do is dream. Because of the isolation she lives in, she has no chance of ever making something of herself. This portrayal makes Curley’s Wife more depressed because no-one had ever asked her what her name was if she had one and everyone would always address her as Curley’s Wife.
Curley's Wife's loneliness is caused through her husband Curley. Even though Curley's Wife is mentioned frequently, nobody actually asks what her real name is. Nobody wants to talk her because people are afraid of Curley; he is jealous that she would be interacting with other people. She does not like Curley, and he doesn’t talk to her at all, and there's no one in her life with who she can share her feelings with. However, because she is Curley's Wife, most of the ranch workers avoid talking to her, and she notices that she is being rejected and ignored and asks them several times what is wrong with her, and why doesn’t she have a right to communicate like everyone else does "What's the matter with me? Ain't I got a righ to talk to nobody?", and that no one cares about her "Seems like they ain't none of them cares how I gotta live". This loneliness has a link with the way she acts and dresses. She dresses the way she does and flirts with the ranch workers to take her mind off of her loneliness. This gives her a way to relieve out of her loneliness and makes her feel wanted. This is where she then can share any concerns she has or experiences that she has faced. She had noticed that Lennie thought that she was “purty” and this is where she tries to get close to him and talk to him. This portrayal is important to the novel because it causes her own death as she becomes too close to Lennie and he starts to feel comfortable with her. This is the mistake she made from trying to make friends with Lennie and this attribute she has caused her own death. This is also shown by another character in the novel, Crooks. Crooks was segregated from everyone because of his colour and he didn’t get to use the same facilities as anyone else. He was controlled by the whites and this was one thing in common with Curley’s Wife’s loneliness because she was controlled by Curley.
I think that Curley’s Wife had always been depressed since the day she married Curley. She wasn’t permitted to talk to anyone on ranch and had nothing to do all day which caused her loneliness. I think her loneliness had led to her death. From being flirtatious, being controlled by Curley and having no name, it had led her into a mental depression where she would have done anything to get out of it. This meant she even stooped low enough to try and flirt with Lennie to try and get some sort of conversation going so she could get her mind out of her isolation. When she had the chance to make conversation she took it but it was a wrong mistake. As she was controlled by Curley she was always scared to make conversation and so were the other ranch workers because they were scared of getting fired. She had never known the real reason why anyone would talk to her.
