Curley’s Wife
Curley’s wife is described as having ‘full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up.’ ‘Rouge’ suggests a provocative, flirtatious and dangerous nature, as the colour red has links with all of these things. ‘Heavily made up’ suggests that she is fake and puts on a front to the others, as it almost suggests that she is hiding her face and true self. Most of the things that she has and wears are red (‘red mules,’ ‘red ostrich feathers’) which further strengthens the idea that Curley’s wife is going to be trouble later in the novella. The way that she talks is described as having a ‘nasal, brittle quality,’ which gives the impression that it is annoying. This reflects her personality in the way that she is always bothering the ranch workers and causing problem after problem for them. Every time her movements are described, they have a flirtatious and suggestive way about them. For example, ‘leaned against the door frame so that her body was thrown forward.’ This reflects her attitude around the ranch workers and suggests that she is always looking for attention in any way she can- usually on a sexual level. This not only makes us guess that she is lonely and quite a sad character, but also gives us a small bit of pity for her, based on the grounds that she feels like she must resort to using her body just so that people will give her any time out of their day.
Curley’s wife’s relationships with other characters don’t vary that much in OMAM. She doesn’t, as a rule, like workers like George, Carlson and Candy. This is because the workers that are like this don’t like her, and frequently call her things like a ‘tart.’ This would be known by Curley’s wife, and make her feel worthless. Carlson, Candy and George all have the same opinion of her- that she is nothing more than a ‘tart’ that shouldn’t be paid any attention to because she has ‘got the eye.’ Curley’s wife gets on a bit better with Slim. She likes Slim because he seems to talk to her more than the others, and doesn’t constantly make it blatantly obvious he doesn’t like her. Slim says ‘Hi, Good-lookin'’’ when he sees her in the bunk house, and they both talk to each other in a more friendly way than she talks to/is talked to by the other men. Curley’s wife hates Curley. This is because he is never around, and feels like he can control her all of the time. Curley doesn’t hate his wife, but he certainly doesn’t care for her, and he makes it clear that he sees her as an object for him to use and then ignore during the day. Curley’s wife is horrible to Crooks. This is probably because he is the only person she can dominate, as she is a woman and he is black. She is racist to him and tries to exert her power over him by threatening to have him ‘strung up on a tree,’ saying that it would be ‘so easy it ain’t even funny.’ Crooks is fearful of Curley’s wife, as he knows that everything she says is true and she ultimately has a lot more power than he does. Curley’s wife seems to like Lennie more towards the end of the novella. This is because she realises that he has more in common with her than she thought, and she knows that she can trust him to not run off and spread everything she is saying to him. Lennie takes to Curley’s wife in the beginning, and even says to George that she’s ‘purty.’ Lennie is almost mesmerised by the way that she dresses and her soft hair, which ultimately is the reason for her death.
Themes explored through Curley’s Wife:
- · Loneliness- “I get awful lonely.”
- · American Dream- “I coulda made somethin’ of myself”
- · Death- “the rectangle of sunshine in the doorway was cut off”
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