The depiction of women in the novel “Of Mice and Men”, is far from being flattering. Steinbeck has, in this novel, only one female character, Curley 's wife, and as we can see, she didn 't even has a first name. The other women in the novel are referred as prostitutes, with the exception of Lennie 's aunt Clara, who seems to be a housewife. These images could be interpreted as misogynist in our time, but putting those images in the context of the 30 's in the United States, we can see the will of the author trying to point out the problems in the society he is living and his effort for changing it. The women of "Of Mice and Men" are not the American women of the 30 's, on the contrary, is the image that the society have about females. Even
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According to the book “Economic Activity during Boom, Bust, and War”, despite the desire of women to serve in their society and work to bring bread to the table as well as men, the society was not very accepting of this. Even the government legislated against married women employment and a lot of cities and states tried to fire every married women or at least the ones with working husbands. Nothing like this is portrayed by Steinbeck. The women of Salina are a housewife with little to none responsibilities and the prostitutes of old Susy 's flophouse. The women in “Of Mice and Men” are seen as a disease, a parasite or something infectious. In the Novel George expressed “...You give me a good whore house every time,(...) A guy can go in an ' get drunk and get everything out this system all at once, an ' no messes...”. Here we can see how George thinks that he doesn 't need much of a woman, except for having his physiological needs covered. Other than that they can give you only …show more content…
This is understandable since the whole story is portrayed in a rural area of America. In the novel there are not black women or immigrant from another country, so is hard to comprehend the reality of women during the Great Depression when, according to the article “Women and the Great Depression”, “...Women experienced the Depression differently based on their age, marital status, geographical location, race and ethnicity...”. According to the book “Economic Activity during Boom, Bust, and War” in its chapter nine we can read “...a 1931 study of urban areas indicated that African-American women had unemployment levels two to four times greater than white women”. During the Depression most African-American Women worked on agriculture or domestic service, areas that suffered a lot during the crisis. On the other hand white women who didn’t have to work before, where now competing for jobs previously abandoned as too undesirable to black
According to the book “Economic Activity during Boom, Bust, and War”, despite the desire of women to serve in their society and work to bring bread to the table as well as men, the society was not very accepting of this. Even the government legislated against married women employment and a lot of cities and states tried to fire every married women or at least the ones with working husbands. Nothing like this is portrayed by Steinbeck. The women of Salina are a housewife with little to none responsibilities and the prostitutes of old Susy 's flophouse. The women in “Of Mice and Men” are seen as a disease, a parasite or something infectious. In the Novel George expressed “...You give me a good whore house every time,(...) A guy can go in an ' get drunk and get everything out this system all at once, an ' no messes...”. Here we can see how George thinks that he doesn 't need much of a woman, except for having his physiological needs covered. Other than that they can give you only …show more content…
This is understandable since the whole story is portrayed in a rural area of America. In the novel there are not black women or immigrant from another country, so is hard to comprehend the reality of women during the Great Depression when, according to the article “Women and the Great Depression”, “...Women experienced the Depression differently based on their age, marital status, geographical location, race and ethnicity...”. According to the book “Economic Activity during Boom, Bust, and War” in its chapter nine we can read “...a 1931 study of urban areas indicated that African-American women had unemployment levels two to four times greater than white women”. During the Depression most African-American Women worked on agriculture or domestic service, areas that suffered a lot during the crisis. On the other hand white women who didn’t have to work before, where now competing for jobs previously abandoned as too undesirable to black