She is lonely
• We should feel sorry for Curley’s wife because she is lonely.
After reading her conversation with Lennie. “she went on with
her story quickly before she get interrupted” “ ain't I got a
right to talk to nobody” this shows us that Curley’s wife is trying
to explain to Lennie what her life is like before he disappears.
• She wants to go through it without stopping because she really
wants to share it with him because he’s the first person who
hasn’t walked away from her, so she feels quite close to him.
• This can also show us that she came and talked to Lennie
because she felt lonely and had no one to talk to her therefore we
can tell that her life must have been isolated because she had no
one to talk to.
• This also shows us that her husband must have been busy with
friends and he is more happy with friends rather than his wife
which means that she isn’t truly loved by her husband because
he doesn’t stay with her.
She dies
• Steinbeck wants us to feel sorry for her at the end of the
book when she dies.
• “She was very pretty and simple, and her face was
sweet and young”
• This shows us that she is seen as being sweet and
innocent in death –her natural beauty is allowed to shine
through.
• This highlights the fact that it was her negative life
experience that made her act in the way that she did. This
can also show us that Steinbeck wants the reader to go l
on a rollercoaster (like her, hate her, like her) which
makes the book more interesting to read.
• By using the words sweet and young to describe her it
also makes us feel sorry for her because it shows that she
is innocent and that she didn’t really deserve to die.
She wasn’t treated fairly by men
’Another time I met a guy, and he was in pictures, went
out to the Riverside Dance Palace with him, he says he
was gonna put me in the movies, soon as he got back to
Hollywood he was going to write to me about it.’’
This shows that she wanted to be an actress, but
couldn’t fulfil her dreams as in America in 1930’s women
were not treated equally and had no rights. They were
seen as below men and did not have a say in what’s right
and wrong. This man used her and made promises to
her that he was never going to keep.
She wasn’t treated fairly by men
Because he let her down and she didn’t get what she
wanted she married Curley who also treated her badly.
He didn’t love her, didn’t talk to her and it is implied that
he hit her too.
Her life really hasn’t ended up the way she expected it to,
which is another reason why we should feel sorry for her.
She is the only woman on the ranch
• Curley’s Wife is the only female on the ranch and in the
book.‘’Why can’t I talk to you? I never get to talk to
anybody, I get awful lonely.’’ This shows us that she has
no female friends or any friends at all. She has no one
to share her problems/thoughts with and this could make
her feel isolated from the rest of the ranch.
• This lack of someone to talk to drives her to go to Lennie
and talk to him. When she does she realizes who’s good
and bad. She finally confides in someone and the one
person that she thinks she can trust/talk to is the person
that ends up killing her.. We should therefore feel sorry
for her.
Other reasons
• She has no name; she is a possession. We should feel
sorry for her because she doesn’t exist in her own right.
No-one sees her as a person and Steinbeck didn’t want
the reader to either; hence no name.
• She’s stereotyped by everyone else as a sexual predator
and can’t justify herself or her beahviour due to the fact
she’s a woman and no one can see past this.
• She died because she was enjoying having someone to
talk to and someone to pay attention to her, which
means that no one wanted to listen to her or talk to her,
which can make her feel rejected/depressed + nobody
cares about her - therefore we should feel sorry for her.
Her behaviour is inappropriate
• We should dislike her in the book because she
behaves inappropriately for a woman, a wife, on
a ranch of men. She is always looking for
someone to talk to when she should be at home
being Curley’s wife.
• Her flirting with all the men often gets them in
trouble. She is a dangerous person and can
cause problems for others. This is shown when
George says “listen to me, you crazy bastard”
“don’t you even take a look at that bitch. I don’t
care what she says and what she does. I seen
‘em poison before.”
Her behaviour is inappropriate
• Her inappropriate flirting ultimately ends in her
death. She lets Lennie feel her hair and then
she screams and he breaks her neck because
he didn’t know his own strength. This caused
Lennie to be killed later on in the book which
brings to an end George, Lennie and Candy's
dream – this is Curley’s Wife’s fault.
• She is quite promiscuous/flirtatious in her
behaviour, trying to make the men notice her.
She stands against the doorframe and arches
her body, so much that Lennie stares at her and
gets told off by George. Considering she is
married, she shouldn’t behave like this.
Her dress is inappropriate
• She dresses inappropriately for a woman on a
ranch. She should be in dungarees and welly
boots, but instead she is in a “cotton dress, red
mules with ostrich feathers.” She is “heavily
made up” and wears red lipstick.
She is a mean person
• In chapter 4 Curley’s Wife shows how mean she
is when she picks on Crooks. When he tells her to
leave his room, she tells him that “she could get
him strung up so quick it ain’t even funny.’
Threatening to get someone killed isn’t very nice,
especially when they haven’t done anything to
deserve it. She is using her power of being a
white woman over Crooks but in a very mean
way.
• She blames her mum for the “pitchers’ man never
contacting her; even though it isn’t her mum’s
fault and then moves out of home, leaving her
mum alone.
She causes her own trouble
• Everything that happens to Curley’s Wife is because she
brings it on herself and she therefore doesn’t deserve our
sympathy.
• The man that she meets at the Riverside Dance Palace
never contacts her and she blames it on her mum. The
next night she meets Curley and she marries him. This is a
rash and foolish action and one that is bound to go wrong.
You don’t marry someone you hardly know, and certainly
not to a) get back at your mum and b) if you’re on the
rebound.
• She knows that Lennie crushed her husband’s hand and
yet she invites him to stroke her hair – doh! She is asking
for trouble, especially when she knows he is simple and
incredibly strong.
All the men on the ranch dislike her –
and they can’t all be wrong…
• Curley’s Wife is described by many of the men on the
ranch in a very negative way.
• “Looloo”
• “Jailbait”
• “Poison”
• “Well I think Culey’s married a … tart’
• “She’s got the eye. I seen her give Slim the eye.”
• The fact that they all describe her like this – and that
George is instantly alarmed by her and tells Lennie to stay
away from her – shows that she must be a character to
dislike because they can’t all be wrong.
• Steinbeck has also intentionally created her as a horrible
character because he doesn’t say anything nice about her
until after she has died. He wants the reader to dislike her.