How is Curley’s wife presented in chapter 4?
Prior to chapter 4, Curley’s wife is seen as a victim, mainly a victim at Curley’s hand. The readers are meant to slowly feel more and more sorry for her as the book goes on, this is until she is a major part of chapter 4, at which point the pity goes away are the reader feel little more than disgust at her behaviour.
She enters in chapter 4, upon first glance, supposedly looking for Curley, however it turns out she was probably just lonely and looking for someone to talk to, she finds Crooks, Lennie and Candy in the barn, they show her little compassion and at this she gets angry, this is the first we have seen of this side of her. She then continues on to insult and abuse the three men because they are easy targets it would seem, the shouts at them and hurts them each individually because they are the underdogs, she insults Candy for being old and disabled, Lennie for being a ‘Dum-Dum’ and Crooks most of all she threatens with a lynching, possibly because he is the lowest of the low in her eyes, the one who is least likely to fight back, as Lennie has George and Candy although old may get someone to listen to him. She abuses the men because she is abused by Curley, she feels quite low in the social heap and she thinks that by asserting her authority over the people who are even less fortunate than herself that she will feel better about it.
