EXAMPLE OF A SUMMER READING ANALYSIS PARAGRAPH:
NOVEL: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
CHAPTER OF FOSTER: “. . . Or the Bible”
Thomas C. Foster suggests in his book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, that, when
students are in doubt of the origins of an archetype, if it’s not from Shakespeare, there’s a good chance
it is from the Bible. “Even those [writers] who aren’t religious or don’t live within the Judeo-Christian
tradition may work in something from Job or Matthew or Psalms” (48). Among the more typical ways a
writer may borrow from the Bible include making allusions, quoting key lines of scripture, borrowing
names or titles from books, or modeling characters on Biblical archetypes. In his novel Of Mice and Men,
John Steinbeck employs the latter. The character of Curley’s wife can be seen as having qualities like
that of Eve, the first woman in the story of Genesis. Among other things Eve represented the idea of
temptation and the introduction of evil into the Garden of Eden. While Eve’s temptation of Adam was in
her convincing him to disobey God’s order to not eat from the tree of knowledge, Curley’s wife
functions in a similar way in Steinbeck’s story but as more of a sexual temptation. She tempts Lennie
and, as a result, inadvertently sabotages Lennie’s and George’s dreams. First of all, Curley’s wife isn’t
ever given a name, which suggests she is there as more of an object or a function than a whole person.
She is alternately referred to by such names as “tart” or “jailbait” and is said to wear too much makeup
and dress like a “whore.” When she is first introduced, it is said that she “put her hands behind her back
and leaned against the door frame so that her body was thrown forward” (Steinbeck 31). She is seen as
a manipulator of men, much in the way Eve is said to have manipulated Adam to disobey God. From this
characterization, it is assumed the reader will dismiss or distrust Curley’s wife, and indeed that is the
reaction many have. However, Steinbeck turns this on its head by having the reader sympathize with
Curley’s wife by speaking of her dreams of being a movie star and through several scenes where it’s
made clear that she is, like many women, repressed by the male-dominated society in which she lives. In
this way, she also fulfills the Eve archetype.