Curleys Wife In Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

A lack of attention and love towards women result in females to act different from who they truly are and causes them to go against their beliefs just to feel wanted. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck practices this position with Curley’s wife. Steinbeck shows her going out of her way in hopes of finding consideration and respect. Curley’s wife behaves as a flirt in result of her loneliness. In the story Curley’s wife is the only female on the ranch. As a result of this, she doesn’t have anyone to talk to since Curley is overly protective about his wife to the other men to make sure the men feel like he has more dominance over anyone else on the ranch and doesn’t want any of the men to get what he has. In the story, Steinbeck displays how awful of a person Curley really is when he says, “ I’m gonna get him. I’m going for my shotgun. I’ll kill the big son-of-a-bi*ch myself. I’ll shoot ‘im in the guts. Come on, you guys.” He ran furiously out of the barn.” (Steinbeck 96) This just shows that Curley was stirring up more anger at the fact Lennie took what was once his because …show more content…
In the barn, when she is talking with Lennie, she really expresses who she is and feels comfortable displaying her authentic self to Lennie. At this point in the book, Curley’s wife really just let’s go of this act that she has been portraying throughout the story and because she confesses to him, she moved closer to Lennie and sat beside him. She says to Lennie, “Well, I ain’t told this to nobody before. Maybe I ought’n to. I don’t like Curley He ain’t a nice fella” (Steinbeck 89). Curley’s wife feels as if she needs to live up to the men’s expectations in order to not feel lonely. She feels as if men idolize women for their bodies rather than their true self so she expresses herself as an object thinking that it will get the men’s attention and they will help her to no longer feel