Lady Macbeth's Power In Of Mice And Men

Similarly, Lady Macbeth is existent in a time where women were oppressed and manipulated by men; although, as becomes clear through the play, she goes against this societal norm and expectation of women to be weak and subordinate. She expresses a desire to be powerful and dominant and she exercises this desire over Macbeth as she coerces him into endeavouring to become king. This can be seen at many points during the play: “but screw your courage to the sticking place”, “when you durst do it, then you were a man.” These quotes are examples of Lady Macbeth’s emotional abuse and manipulation, which is contrasted against the threats of physical violence by Curley’s Wife in Of Mice and Men. The quote beginning “when you durst do it” is emotional …show more content…
Macbeth and Of Mice and Men convey multiple ways that people attain power, mainly through either inheritance, à la lady Macbeth’s power because of Macbeth and Curley’s power by being the boss’s son, or through hard work and reputation, in the cases of slim (the de facto leader of the ranch) and Macbeth (a noble, respected warrior.)

In the novel of Mice and Men, Curley is presented as an aggressor, most notably evident during his outburst towards Lennie: “his rage exploded”. The abstract noun ‘Rage’ implies a great feeling of anger, for which the reason in the novel is not clear. The sequence of events surrounding the cause of the fracas is Curley’s own creation, as he manipulates the situation into a reason to exercise some of his power over someone who is inferior and clearly much weaker than him. This causes a stern dislike from the reader towards Curley, as Lennie is observably a vulnerable character, and Curley takes advantage of this. As his status was not earned through his own work, Curley has a very minimal amount of respect from the other men. As a result, he is very aggressive in what I infer to be an attempt to compensate for this lack of respect he has from the other men. Curley’s power is acquired solely through his father, being the boss’s son, he automatically has an inherited power placing him above most of the other men in the hierarchy. Because …show more content…
The colour of someone’s skin almost completely defined them as a person, and thus black people were shunned and marginalised in society. The character who is most unequivocally marginalised and oppressed in Of Mice and Men is Crooks. He is kept separate from the rest of the men, and is not allowed to enter the bunkhouse, the home of the other men, simply due to the fact that he is black-skinned. Because he is segregated, as expected his standard of living is significantly lower than all of the other men. It is said that his bed is a “long box filled with straw”. This has a connection to an animal’s bedding, which is an indirect reinforcement of the way that he and other black people were treated in society – as animals. As aforementioned Crooks is called a “nigger” very frequently throughout the