Curley's wife

Curley's wife

Curley’s Wife

Curley’s wife has been seen as a very lonely and insignificant character throughout the entire book and everybody just simply turns the other way and ignores her. It is like she ceases to exist. But in my opinion, I think that she is a victim of shattered dreams.

She is in fact so insignificant that the author, John Steinbeck hasn’t even thought of giving her a proper name. She is simply known as Curley’s wife and that’s who she is and nothing else. She is avoided and nobody goes to her to talk, she goes to them and even though she does, they still avoid her because in everyone’s heads, she is definitely trouble so they ignore her, as George says: “Don’t you even take a look at that bitch…..I never seen no piece of jail bait worse than her”

I think that she has definitely tried to let go of her past but could not have the will power to just let go. So I think she has tried to fill up her wounds and dead memories of her past by marrying Curley and I think she just wants to have the freedom to start over and get a second chance.

Linking back to how lonely she is, she lives in a town called Soledad which is Spanish for loneliness. What is even worse is the fact that she is the only woman in the ranch which is probably why she flirts a lot with the men at the ranch because she has no other women to talk to: “she said playfully”. She also does it probably to take her mind of her past. Her excuse for flirting is that she is looking for Curley, as Curley’s wife says: “I’m lookin’ for Curley”, and “Sometimes Curley’s in here”.   Even if she flirts and comes talking to other men in the ranch, they ignore her which makes her more desperate more company and then she chases after people just to have a conversation with the workers but they still just walk away. Sometimes she gets really angry as Curley’s wife says: “Aint I got the right to talk to anybody?”

Her shattered dreams of becoming an actress...