Of_Mice_and_Men_Important_Character

Describe a character or individual in of mice and men of whom you found interesting. Explain how the writing made the character interesting to you. Of Mice and Men written by John Steinbeck tells the tragic story about George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers during the Great Depression in California. An interesting character in this book that Lennie and George meet is ‘Curleys Wife’, a young pretty women who is mistrusted by her husband Curley, the son of the boss of the ranch. The other characters refer to her only as “Curleys Wife”, making her the only significant character in the novel without a name. This lack of personal definition underscores this characters purpose in the book, to be a symbol of how women were treated in the 1930’s – 1940’s. Curley’s wife is a very interesting character to the reader because in the novel of Mice and Men she is very complex and different from any other character because she is perceived in so many different ways. The men on the ranch think she’s a floozy because she’s always after there attention. She does this by giving them the eye, even though she’s only been married to Curley for 2 weeks, “I seen her give slim the eye. Curley never seen it. An’ I seen her give Carlson the eye” Another reason why the men think she’s a floozy is because she acts very prerogative around the men to get there attention “Oh, she put her hands behind her back and leaned against the doorframe so that her body was thrown forward”. Curleys wife acting in this way shows the reader that she is so lonely, she thinks she has to act sexy and get all dressed up to get the ranch workers attention. Curley’s wife acting prerogative isn’t clear to the ranch workers that she’s just trying to get attention; they just think she is even more of a tart “Well, I think curleys married a tart”. As there are no other females on the ranch the reader knows about, the only girls the men know are curleys wife and the ladies in the “whore House”. This shows the men stereotypical view on women as that of a “whore”. Because of this Curleys wife dressing up is perceived as tarty and not a way to get attention “she had full rouged lips and wide spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages. She wore a cotton house dress and red mules”. The real meaning for this is her want for attention and desire for her dream of being a rich and famous movie star to come true. Curley’s wife is a difficult character to understand. Steinbeck hasn’t named her; this could be from a number of different reasons. He may have wanted her to be seen as lonely therefore not naming her shows no one got close enough to her to call her by her first name. Steinbeck may have done this to show the male attitudes towards females in the 1940’s. On that ranch, that land of men, women are not treated as people, Women are objects. Women serve a function. Women can be mothers, wives or objects of physical desire. The woman that Curley married is “his wife” that is her name as far as the men are concerned. They can think of her only as she relates to Curley and their opinion of him. Curley’s wife also helps provoke mixed emotions in the reader. We often feel sorry for her such as when she talks of her loneliness to Lennie “ I get lonely, you can talk to people but I cant talk to anybody but curley, else he gets mad. How’d you like not to talk to anybody'” But on other occasions the reader can find her cold hearted, this is shown when she is very racist towards crooks “Well keep your place then nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so fast it aint even funny.” This shows the reader Curley’s wife’s complexity and how she is a different character to understand in many ways. To conclude Curleys wife is a very interesting character to the reader because she shows complexity and is perceived in many ways by the different characters in the novel. Steinbeck is trying to get the point across that she is a lonely girl whom has been falsely stereotyped as a “whore” by the ranch workers. The novel shows us this by the men on the ranch think nothing of her other than Curley’s wife who is a floozy wanting there attention. Steinbeck made Curleys wife even more interesting to the reader by not naming her, making her seem even more lonely and as if she is property of Curley. Steinbeck created a charter for the reader to feel sympathetic towards because he wanted the reader to know how most women were treated in the 1930’s. Curley’s wife is a symbol of this and how they were dominated by men. They were not treated as an individual with feelings and dreams, but as an object to be used by males.