Steinbeck’s portrayal of Women
“ You gotta husban’, you got no call foolin’ aroun’ with other guys, causin’ trouble” (85). Crooks (while in the stablehand’s room), tells Curley’s wife to leave them alone, as he wants no trouble. In George Steinbeck’s Of Mice of Men, women are depicted negatively in today’s terms but correct for the times. This negative depiction displays the times of the 1930’s as women don’t have full rights as they do now, don’t belong with farm life, and how their image of serving no purpose other than ‘procreation and recreation’ effects how they were treated.
In today’s standards women have many rights, whereas in the 1930’s it was totally different. Women were unable to own their own piece of property back in the 1930’s so in many cases that forced them to live with their husband in a place where they do not wish to. Married women were banned from working in many cases, which only reinforces the lack of independence, forcing the woman to live with her husband. A prefect example of this type of situation would be in Of Mice of Men, as Curley’s wife mentions in the story how she desired to become a star in Hollywood. Since she ‘Never got her letter’ from the man who promised to get her there, Curley’s wife said “ So I married Curley. Met him out to the Riverside Dance Palace that same night” (97). Being
