Character of Curley’s wife and how she reacts to others Essay

In Of Mice and Men, we see various different sides of Curleys married charwoman. We are first introduced to her adjacent the beginning of the book and she plays a large-mouthed role towards the conclusion of the book. Her flirtatious character leads to her being killed by Lennie, in a confused state.Candy, the old swamper, introduces us to Curleys wife during his first discussion with George and Lennie. Candy tells them that Curleys wife is a tart. The fact that Curleys wife is introduced to us with having the eye tells us that she is very flirtatious with other men in the paste despite having a husband (Curley). The fact that we, the readers, are introduced to Curleys wife through venomous rumours means that already the reader has a negatively biased opinion on Curleys wife and women in general at those times.Curleys wife is first physic exclusivelyy introduced to us in the doorway of the bunkhouse where George and Lennie are at, asking for the whereabouts of her husband. She is described as wearing a cotton house dress and carmine mules which had bouquets of red ostrich feathers on the insteps. In the description of Curleys wifes clothes the colour red is repeated and emphasized many times. reddened is often referred to as the colour of love and passion, which further emphasizes her sexual and flirtatious personality. Also the bouquets of red ostrich feathers on her insteps would have probably been very big-ticket(prenominal) at the time of the Great Depression and the fact that she wears them in the middle of a dusty and dirty environment where they could easily be ruined tells us that she is desperate to catch the attention of the workers and to also impress them despite having a husband, further emphasizing her character as a tart.Curleys wife is hated by the ranch workers . When she enters the room of Crooks, Candy and Crooks are lower down away from her eyes. This tells us that they are either afraid of of Curleys wife or that they are aware o f the fact that anything involving Curleys wife can bring no good. Either waythe use of the word scowling tells us that the presence of Curleys wife displeases Crooks and Candy. This tells us that completely of the ranch workers dislike Curleys wife as they know that there will be trouble if they ever speak to her.Curleys wife is not yet described as being flirtatious but she is also shown to be beastly at times. Since Crooks and Candy keep ignoring her she gets frustrated and explodes when Crooks stands up for himself by saying threatening comments like I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it aint rase funny. This causes Crook to realize his place in society and causes him to become very weak. This tells us that at the time the words of a white woman were superior to that of a black man. This also emphasizes the amount of racism during the Great Depression.During the same scene, you take leave to see a new side of Curleys wife and start to see the loneliness she feels. We see this when Curleys wife says to Crooks, Candy and Lennie saying that she is talk to a bunch of bindle stiffs an likin it because they aint nobody else. This makes us understand the tenability why she acts flirtatiously around the ranch workers. This is because she feels lonely as she is the only woman on the ranch and even though she has a husband he barely spends any time at home or with her. This shows that even though Curleys wife married Curley, he thinks of her as nothing more than an object.Curleys wifes last appearance has a big impact on how we see her. While the other ranch workers were playing horseshoe, Curley tells Lennie about the time which could have changed her life totally. She tells him that she could have been in the movies. In this line Steinbeck uses very clever irony. The fact that she wants to be under the spot light is unrealistic as all she ever does is cast shadows on herself and attract negative attention. Although, Lennie is not very interested in her stories, we learn about the true presonality of Curleys wife, her innocence and her desperate need to escape the business office she is in.At the scene of her death her pure personality is emphasized. This isconveyed to us when her face is described as being sweet and young and that her ache for attention was all gone for her face. The word ache tells us that Curleys wifes desperate need for attention was so strong that it began to hurt her. When she dies she is no longer potrayed in a negative light but is instead shown in a very positive light.When she dies also the atmosphere in the ranch changes. This is shown to us when in the book it says the sun streaks were high on the walls and the barn was light again. This could be that John Steinbeck is trying to use pathetic fallacy by trying to tell us that the positive change in the weather reflect the positive changes in the mood and appearance of Curleys wife. Despite all the positive changes in her personality there are lots of different things that made her death inevitable. We see this when even though Lennie says he likes petting wooly things and that most of the things he pets dies she still lets Lennie touch her hair. This tells us that her never ending want for attention, in the end, foreshadowed her death and ultimately lead to it.We can see that the reason for Curleys wifes hostility towards the ranch workers is because of constant betrayals from them (eg. Curley because he married her but never showed any signs of affection towards her.) and because her needs for attention werent met.To Curley, Curleys wife is just a trophy which he shows off to people. The fact that her real name is never mentioned tells us that people on the ranch showed no signs of interest in Curleys wife. The fact that she lives in the bosss house and that she is married to the bosss son makes her a woman of power even though she is treated as one of the lowest in the hierarchy of people at the ranch in terms of freedom and rights.This loneliness causes Curleys wife to make people who are in a low position feel worse so that she feels more important, mighty and authorative. We see this when she enters Crooks room and says They left all the weak ones here. This tells us that she thinks that she is superior to Crooks, Candy and Lennie even though Steinbeck doesnt give her the dignity of having a name.In conclusion, I think that even though she is a complicated and cruel character sometimes, she never planned on or thought herself to be a flirtatious person. Even though she often acted like one, there were hints telling us why she was acting this way and that her real personality was nenver intelligibly shown.