In What Ways Does Steinbeck Present Curley's Wife
In this passage, what methods does Steinbeck use to present Curley’s wife and the attitudes of others around her?
And
How does Steinbeck present attitudes towards women in the society in which the novel is set?
Steinbeck uses Curley’s wife to represent how many women in the 1930s were classed below men, and how this prejudice allowed their lives to be defined by the men around them. In this passage, Steinbeck has manipulated Curley’s wife’s appearance in order to reinforce our pre judged feelings towards her, based on gossip and rumours told by Candy. At the beginning of the passage, Steinbeck uses contrast and repetition to create strong imagery in our minds regarding Curley’s wife. The careful juxtaposition of ‘the rectangle of sunshine in the doorway was cut off’ and ‘a girl’ is surprising and shows the reader how despite these tones of darkness and immorality conveyed Steinbeck about her, she is but a young, naïve little girl. She is also ‘looking in’, which effectively conveys curiosity and shows how apart from everyone she is, and could suggest a longing for …show more content…
She confides in Lennie and tells him she met a man who said that ‘he was gonna put me in the movies’, which strongly suggests her inability to tell truth from lies and conveys that her desperation to have another life has caused her to believe in this fantasy. However, Steinbeck moves into past tense when Curley’s Wife says that she ‘always thought’ her mother stole it, and next uses a short sentence, ‘so I married Curley’, which could suggest that perhaps she doesn’t entirely believe in her becoming an actress anymore, and that maybe at the time she thought that marrying Curley would act as a new way of life instead. Together these convey that she was not wholly happy in her childhood life, and through this Steinbeck has portrayed for women in the 1930s, their fates rested in men’s
And
How does Steinbeck present attitudes towards women in the society in which the novel is set?
Steinbeck uses Curley’s wife to represent how many women in the 1930s were classed below men, and how this prejudice allowed their lives to be defined by the men around them. In this passage, Steinbeck has manipulated Curley’s wife’s appearance in order to reinforce our pre judged feelings towards her, based on gossip and rumours told by Candy. At the beginning of the passage, Steinbeck uses contrast and repetition to create strong imagery in our minds regarding Curley’s wife. The careful juxtaposition of ‘the rectangle of sunshine in the doorway was cut off’ and ‘a girl’ is surprising and shows the reader how despite these tones of darkness and immorality conveyed Steinbeck about her, she is but a young, naïve little girl. She is also ‘looking in’, which effectively conveys curiosity and shows how apart from everyone she is, and could suggest a longing for …show more content…
She confides in Lennie and tells him she met a man who said that ‘he was gonna put me in the movies’, which strongly suggests her inability to tell truth from lies and conveys that her desperation to have another life has caused her to believe in this fantasy. However, Steinbeck moves into past tense when Curley’s Wife says that she ‘always thought’ her mother stole it, and next uses a short sentence, ‘so I married Curley’, which could suggest that perhaps she doesn’t entirely believe in her becoming an actress anymore, and that maybe at the time she thought that marrying Curley would act as a new way of life instead. Together these convey that she was not wholly happy in her childhood life, and through this Steinbeck has portrayed for women in the 1930s, their fates rested in men’s