‘Of Mice and Men’ is a novel written by John Steinbeck. Steinbeck was inspired by a Scottish poem written by Robert Burns called ‘To a Mouse’. The moral is no matter how hard we plan for something; our plans often fail to become reality. The novel is set in the 1930s in America during the ‘Great Depression’. Curley’s Wife is in fact the only female character in the novel. We eventually meet her and form our own opinion but at first we only have the opinions of some of the men and they give unanimously a bad character. The themes in this represent the themes of dreams of the migrants and of the women- The American Dream. Steinbeck illustrates the novel with the Great Depression with class division amongst the white and black people. The general
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The way that Steinbeck describes her makes the reader feels that she is clearly a flirt due to her appearance. She is described as ‘heavy made up’. She has painted her nails bright red indicating that she has dressed herself up though she is going nowhere. In the context, walking into the bunkhouse like that is very provocative. We can see that she is not a young and innocent girl because of the way she is dressed and the way she reacts. For example, when she is talking to George, she smiled ‘archly’. However, at the same time, we feel she is probably lonely as she says ‘I ain’t giving no trouble’. Although she isn’t exactly innocent because of her flirting (though this comes as well from her desperate desire to be noticed) she is actually very naïve. Later on (in extract 4) she explains how she wanted to go with a travelling show and her ‘mother wouldn’t let’ her. Her mother at least recognises that the show cast do not really want a fifteen year old for acting purposes. We don’t even know Curley’s Wife’s name which makes her an insignificant character- a nobody.
In wanting to be in the movies, Curley’s Wife is reflecting the wish of many girls like her at the time. Life was very hard during the depression and the glamour of Hollywood seemed to demonstrate the ultimate ‘American Dream’ for young girls . Curley’s Wife is very naïve because she thinks that a man she meets casually in a small town dance hall is going to do what he said and …show more content…
She gets angry and boasts that she could’ve had a better life ‘a guy told me he could put me in pictures’ and she calls them a bunch of ‘bindle stiffs’, a ‘nigga’, a ‘dumb dumb’ and a ‘lazy old sheep’. Candy however is not afraid and tells her that they don’t have to stay because they have their own places to go to. Curley’s wife is not so stupid that she doesn’t know he is lying as she says to them ‘I’ve seen too many of you guys’ but Candy realises that it is not good to argue with her and tells her that Curley might not like her being there. Steinbeck presents Curley’s wife as particularly threatening to Crooks as she calls him a ‘nigga’ and says she ‘could get him strung up on a tree just for saying the wrong thing’
The way that Steinbeck describes her makes the reader feels that she is clearly a flirt due to her appearance. She is described as ‘heavy made up’. She has painted her nails bright red indicating that she has dressed herself up though she is going nowhere. In the context, walking into the bunkhouse like that is very provocative. We can see that she is not a young and innocent girl because of the way she is dressed and the way she reacts. For example, when she is talking to George, she smiled ‘archly’. However, at the same time, we feel she is probably lonely as she says ‘I ain’t giving no trouble’. Although she isn’t exactly innocent because of her flirting (though this comes as well from her desperate desire to be noticed) she is actually very naïve. Later on (in extract 4) she explains how she wanted to go with a travelling show and her ‘mother wouldn’t let’ her. Her mother at least recognises that the show cast do not really want a fifteen year old for acting purposes. We don’t even know Curley’s Wife’s name which makes her an insignificant character- a nobody.
In wanting to be in the movies, Curley’s Wife is reflecting the wish of many girls like her at the time. Life was very hard during the depression and the glamour of Hollywood seemed to demonstrate the ultimate ‘American Dream’ for young girls . Curley’s Wife is very naïve because she thinks that a man she meets casually in a small town dance hall is going to do what he said and …show more content…
She gets angry and boasts that she could’ve had a better life ‘a guy told me he could put me in pictures’ and she calls them a bunch of ‘bindle stiffs’, a ‘nigga’, a ‘dumb dumb’ and a ‘lazy old sheep’. Candy however is not afraid and tells her that they don’t have to stay because they have their own places to go to. Curley’s wife is not so stupid that she doesn’t know he is lying as she says to them ‘I’ve seen too many of you guys’ but Candy realises that it is not good to argue with her and tells her that Curley might not like her being there. Steinbeck presents Curley’s wife as particularly threatening to Crooks as she calls him a ‘nigga’ and says she ‘could get him strung up on a tree just for saying the wrong thing’