We don’t see Curley´s wife again until chapter four. She was looking for someone to talk with on a Saturday night. Everyone was out except for Lennie, Candy and Crooks. So she went to talk with them. However, she preferred to talk with someone else: - “Sat’iday night. Ever’body out doin’ som’ping. Ever’body! An’ what I am doing? Standin’ here talkin’ to a bunch of bindle stiffs –– a nigger an’ a dum-dum and a lousy ol’ sheep –– an’ likin’ it because they ain’t nobody else.” (Chapter 4, pg. 78) How lonely was Curley’s wife that night, to go to the stable and want to talk with them? She felt so lonely that it didn’t matter with whom she was talking. She only wanted to feel the presence of someone next to her. She wanted to feel she was alive.
The next chapter also explores Curley’s wife loneliness. Most of the men were outside playing at throwing horseshoes. Only Lennie was in the barn. Curley’s wife came and started to talk with him. She wanted to talk to the most dim-witted person in the ranch. However, Lennie didn’t want to have a conversation with her because he thought it would cause problems. Curley’s wife was so lonely and desperate to talk with someone, “I get lonely… You can talk to people” (Chapter 6, pg.85). She also made the point that she only could talk with Curley “You can talk to people, but I can’t talk with nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad” (Chapter 6, pg. 85) She doesn’t like to talk with Curley. She doesn’t even love Curley. She was also feared Curley getting mad. This horrible man that is supposed to be the person that she loved more, was the person she hated and feared most of all.
Curley’s wife confessed to Lennie the great dream that she had, to be a film star in Hollywood, “An a guy tol’ me he could put me in the pitchers”, she confesses. This frustrated dream and now living with the man that she doesn’t love, makes her miserable. A miserable woman, who tries to escape from her loneliness. That is why she told the dream to Lennie, to escape from her loneliness. It was at the end, deadly confession.
Through the entire story Curley´s wife’s real name was never mention. She didn’t have a personality; she was only the wife of a man. She was like an object whose owner was Curley. She was not longer a woman; she was the possession of man who won a boxing trophy. This could be another cause of why she needed to talk with someone as she did with Lennie, to liberate the frustration of felling like an object.
Curley’s wife tried to survive on a ranch in a barn full of men. She tries not feeling lonely by talking with people and putting make-up. But in the end all her worries came to an end. She was finally free and in peace. Steinbeck represents that peace with the pigeon that flied in and out of the barn: like the spirit of Curley´s wife. All the meanness and ache of attention were all gone from her face and her body. She was more pretty and simple. She was no longer lonely
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Jazmin Botello