Also John Steinbeck has significantly not given Curley’s wife a proper name. She is referred to as his property for example ‘Curley’s horse’. Maybe she doesn’t deserve one, that when she married Curley she got a name. This reflects on her dream of equal rights for women. She is a very lonely person; she has no one to talk to except the men on the ranch who don’t really listen to her. So to make them listen to her, or pretend to in most cases, she dresses provocatively to get attention. She seems to get left out of the conversations that the men have, and gets very lonely. The men leave her out because they, for some reason, don’t trust her, as they always tell her to go away. Curley’s Wife gets very lonely because Curley is out most of the day, and she has nothing to do. She proclaims this where she says:
‘Why can’t I talk to you? I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely.’
However Candy and Whit see her as a ‘tart’ and ‘jail-bait’ and she’s always giving the ‘eye’.
Even Curly doesn’t notice her; he still goes out to the ‘cat houses’ with the other ranch workers, instead of staying with his wife. She seems to be hurt by this, she says. “Think I don’t know where they all went? Even Curley. I know where they all went.” This is why Curley’s wife is forced to talk to the ‘rejects’ in the society. People were very prejudiced against ethnic minorities in those days. ‘Standin’ here talking to a bunch of bindle stiffs – a nigger an’ a dum-dum and a lousy ol’ sheep.’ She talks these people who she considers to be ‘out of her league,’ but in a way this makes her a more tragic character, because unlike the others, even Lennie, she seems not to understand her limitations - or she refuses to admit them. She treats those below her in an unnecessarily disdainful way. This shows how she used her position, as the boss’s son’s new wife, to intimidate and ‘bully’ other people. She saw Crooks as an easy target to pick on because he was black, and an outsider because of it. This made it very easy for her to frighten Crooks. I think that she took pleasure out of his suffering. She is newly married to Curley, an unpleasant man who we later learn, when she confides in Lennie, that she doesn’t even like and regrets marrying!
“I don’t like Curley, he ain’t a nice fella.”
Another action that makes me feel sympathy for her is just before she dies in the barn. I feel sympathy for her then because she’s simply letting Lennie stroke her hair, doing him a favour, and she lost her life in doing so. We know that she is doing him a favour because she says:
‘Here – feel it right here’ and took his hand in hers, and put it on her head. (‘I like to pet nice things. Once at a fair I seen some of them long-hair rabbits. An’ they was nice you bet. Sometimes I’ve even pet mice, but not when I could get nothing better.’), makes Curley’s wife nervous, and she moves ‘away’ from Lennie slightly, and Steinbeck shows us what the character is nervous about, when she tells Lennie that she thinks he is ‘nuts’. Lennie explains his obsession with rabbits, and she is ‘reassured’ by his explanation, and now feels that she has some common ground with him, and starts a conversation about their shared of ‘sof’ things’. They talk more about ‘silk an’ velvet’ and Curley’s wife starts to feel fond of Lennie ‘you’re a kinda nice fella. Jus’ like a big baby’, and continuing their discussion about soft things, she talks about how Curley’s hair is ‘coarse....jus’ like wire’, this is a reference to Steinbeck’s earlier use of simile, comparing Curley to a ‘terrier’, as terriers have coarse wiry coats. Then she tells us how her hair is ‘soft and fine’, showing the contrast between her and Curley, not just in hairstyles, but in their personalities too. Curley’s wife takes Lennie’s hand and puts it on her hair for him to see how soft it is, ‘Feel right aroun’ there an’ see how soft it is’, and Lennie’s ‘big fingers’ fell to stroking her hair. Curley’s wife does not realise that Lennie’s big clumsy hands are where the danger is, and soon, Lennie gets carried away again as he strokes her hair ‘harder’. Curley’s wife gets anxious at this point, and stops gently asking him not to ‘muss’ her hair up, as she cries ‘angrily’, and ‘jerks’ her head away from Lennie. It is at this point that Lennie loses control completely, and his dangerous fingers ‘closed’ around Curley’s wife’s hair, and ‘hung on’.
This makes Lennie obviously responsible for her death because he physically killed her. George is always telling him to be careful around her and stresses that he should not get involved in any way. However, he is mentally ill. He often forgets things and is unable to understand why he should not converse with Curley’s wife; if Lennie did understand his strength and power then he would have left the barn as soon as walk in it, if she was there.
However, I also think that if George and Slim had not left on his own Curley’s wife wouldn’t have died the way she did. George knew full well what Lennie was like and capable of and out of a moment of weakness – in a world of his own, the dream of a little security was coming closer and closer to becoming a reality – he left Lennie alone.
Slim was also aware of Lennie’s abilities but he took no responsibility for him by not finding out where he was or what he was up to. Also in section 2 Slim is found encouraging Curley’s wife’s flirtatious behaviour by saying,
‘Hi Good-lookin.’’
Another person I think put the last nail in Curley’s wife’s coffin was Crooks. Although you wouldn’t think that Crooks had much to do with her being a black and disabled in an absolute prejudice environment. Being black and crippled is like being cursed twice. From studying the description of Crooks and his room, he was the closest person to the barn when Lennie broke Curley’s wife’s neck. It could be argued that he may have heard a scream but being who she was and how she treated him he probably just of ignored it.
However, it is also plausible that Crooks may not have heard the screams of Curley’s wife because of all the noise of the ranch hands were making in the heat of a competition, playing horseshoes.
“From outside came the clang of horseshoe on metal and the chorus of cheers.”
When Lennie killed her the writer says. “The meanness and..... the ache for attention were all gone from her face.” This means that she didn’t have to try anymore and life wasn’t just one long struggle for recognition. She had been released and was now more beautiful and alive than ever. Maybe it also means that she would get the attention now, she would be known as the woman who got killed by a mad man.
Her death marks the final period of tragedy with the end to her suffering. Her body was abandoned by her husband who did not even shed a tear when he found out she was dead. I believe that she is better off in death than in life because of her circumstances.
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Amy Helm 11R