Curley’s wife does not have a good life on the ranch. The relationship between her and Curley is miserable. She hates her husband and is really glad when Lennie “bust up Curley a bit.”, and she wants to do the same sometimes. Steinbeck conveys that she does not like Curley. Curley talks of his sexual life to the workers. So everybody knows why he wears a ”glove’s fulla vaseline.” Curley’s wife is the loneliest character on the ranch. Nobody wants to come into contact with her because the workers are frightened of Curley. Curley is jealous in the relationship with his wife. The reader feels her pain and begins to sympathise with her.
Curley’s wife dreams of a better life than she has now. “A guy tol’” her, that he could get her into “pitchers.” She dreams of being a star, but she has to stay on the ranch on “Sat’iday night” and talk to Lennie, Candy and Crooks. “Ever’body” is “out doin’ som’pin. Ever’body”, except for her. This makes her angry and the reader begins to sympathise with her again. She talks of her dreams to combat the loneliness. Steinbeck reinforces the loneliness by showing strong examples. He focuses on her life on the ranch, and that she does not have one friend. The reader perceives this as tragic. In this case the novelist generates pathos.
The reader loses sympathy with Curley’s wife, however, when she insults and threatens Crooks. She insults Crooks “in scorn.” She threatens that she could get him “strung up on a tree”, if she wanted. It would be so easy for her to get Crooks lynched that “it ain’t even funny.” Also she insults Lennie as “a dum-dum”, and Candy as “a lousy ol’ sheep.” All of them she calls “a bunch of bindle stiffs.” The reader now loses sympathy. Steinbeck portrays her as a desperate, lonely person. The novelist focuses on her hatred of the ranch. She does not want to live in a place like that because she does not have friends and does not have a normal, private life.
Curley’s wife destroys George and Lennie’s dream. Because of her and Lennie’s disability the dream never happens. Always, when George and Lennie speak about their dream, Curley’s wife joins them, and they stop speaking about the dream. Because of this the reader realises that Curley’s wife will prevent the dream. She destroys the dream and this is her contribution to the novel.
In conclusion I think that Curley’s wife is really angry because nobody talks to her. She has no friends on the ranch and she tries to make friends by using her appearance. Also she is guilty of destroying the dream but this is due to loneliness. She is one of the most tragic characters in the novel Of Mice and Men.
Word count: 711
Mauro Caruso
