• Curley’s Wife is the only female on the ranch and in the novella. ‘’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.

She is the only woman on the ranch

• 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 is lonely

’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 wasn’t treated fairly by men

• 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 dies

Other reasonsOther 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.

Curley’s Wife is a threatCurley’s Wife is a threatPOINT: Steinbeck’s first description of Curley’s Wife is that she is a threat. When the George and Lennie (and the readers) first meet Curley's wife, a negative impression is conveyed.

EVIDENCE: Lennie and George are sitting in their cabin. "Both men glance up, for the rectangle of sunshine in the doorway was cut off. A girl was standing there looking in. She had full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up—she put her hands against her back and leaned against the door frame so that her body was thrown forward“.

EXPLAIN: From this first scene, we develop an initial perception based only on appearance and body language. She seems like a girl who is nothing but trouble and will cause dire events to occur in the near future. Steinbeck uses symbolism to reinforce the readers' opinion. When Curley's wife cuts off the light entering through the doorway, Steinbeck is telling his readers that she is “the dark”; which might signify her danger. The fact that Curley's wife is not given a name should be another major symbol for the reader. BY DOING THIS, It makes THE READER realize that Curley’s wife is an objectified character. The name, "Curley's wife" gives the readers a feeling that she is an object; just as Curley's money, Curley's food, and Curley's house belong to Curley—so does his wife. The men IN THE STORY think that Curley's wife is the property of Curley, and like other property, THEY need to stay away.

Her dress is inappropriateHer 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.

Her behaviour is inappropriateHer 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 inappropriateHer 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.

She is a mean personShe 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 troubleShe 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 – All the men on the ranch dislike her – and they can’t all be wrong…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.