How Is Curley's Wife Portrayed In Of Mice And Men

Although women are a big part of society now, women were not treated the same way in the past. In the 1930’s, women were discriminated against and treated differently than men. They had no voting rights, were not represented equally in the workplace to their male counterparts, and were sexualized and treated like objects. In the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, this is depicted in many ways, such as not giving Curley’s wife a distinctive name, male characters viewing women as sexual objects, and how Curley’s wife is depicted as an outcast in the ranch.
One of the main ways the novel shows sexism towards women is through one specific character, Curley’s wife. In the novel, we are never told a name for Curley’s wife. Instead, she is …show more content…
When she attempts to talk to Lennie, Lennie refuses, and she says: “Wha’s the matter with me? Ain’t I got a right to talk to nobody?” which shows that either people refuse to talk to her, or she is restricted from talking to people (Steinbeck 87). She is also not welcome nor suited to live on the ranch, which is shown in this paragraph: “Ranch with a bunch of guys on it ain’t no place for a girl, ‘specially like her”.(Steinbeck, 51). This statement implies that men on the ranch do not think that Curley’s wife is suitable to live on the ranch, because they think it is not a suitable place for a woman to be in. Also, throughout the novel, Crooks disrespects and calls out Curley’s wife, telling her “[to] go along to your own house now, we don’t want no trouble” (Steinbeck, 77) and “You got no call foolin’ aroun’ with other guys, causin’ trouble”(Steinbeck, 77), which clearly shows that Crooks does not want her around, since he thinks all she does is fool around with other men and cause nothing but trouble for them. This proves that even the most ignored and discriminated male character in the novel (Crooks, since he is a colored man) disrespects and treats a woman like an