How Does Steinbeck Present the Character of Curley's Wife in the Novel 'of Mice and Men' ?

How Does Steinbeck Present the Character of Curley's Wife in the Novel 'of Mice and Men' ?

How does Steinbeck present the character of Curley’s Wife?

‘Of Mice and Men’ is a novel written by John Steinbeck and it is set in the 1930’s on a working ranch in Soledad, California, by the Salinas River. On this ranch, we encounter a land of men, where women are not treated as people, but as objects that exist to serve a function. Women in the 1930’s could be wives, mothers or objects of physical desires to the men, and were classed as second class citizens. The only character that is a woman in ‘Of Mice and Men’ is Curley’s wife; and she is set apart from all others. She is a lonely, flirtatious character, who craves companionship, and does not strictly fit in with the stereotype of a typical woman of the time. She is a complex character and throughout the novel we see both sides to her and her depth of complexity.
We first get to hear about the complexity of Curley’s wife’s character, when Candy is in the bunkhouse, talking to George and Lennie. We already know that Candy is a real gossip, because of his loneliness and boredom; this is a perfect opportunity for Candy to tell the newcomers his opinion of her. He says that she is pretty yet ‘she got the eye’. He is suggesting that although she is married she is still willing to flirt with other men. This is partly due to the fact that she is unhappily married to Curley, (the bosses’ son) and is looking for entertainment. She flirts deliberately with the ranch hands, and in turn causes them to suffer Curley’s hot-headed, glove wearing wrath. Further to this she does very little to actually hide these flirtations from Curley, although she probably does this to infuriate him, and to also draw attention to herself. Candy’s opinion of the ‘tart’ is then reinforced, by her appearance soon after he’s just left the bunkhouse. ‘She wore a cotton dress and red mules….bouquets of red ostrich feathers.’ Curley’s Wife is so overdressed for a ranch, and this is shown through her wearing ‘ostrich feathers’. Feathers...

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