Of Mice and Men: Curley's wife
John introduced us to a character called Curley's wife, she plays a complex and misfit character as she got so many different sides to her, as sometimes the reader feels sympathetic and unsympathetic about her. John Steinbeck's novel of Mice and Men is an example of how the reader's perception of a character can change without the character actually changing.
Steinbeck uses many different techniques to present Curley's wife such as colour imagery, appearance, metaphors and similes in the early stages of the novel. The effect of these techniques is that the reader creates a mental image of Curley's wife even before she even enters the novel.
This perception is further emphasized by Curley's Wife's first appearance in the novel. Steinbeck uses light symbolically to show that she can be imposing when he writes, "The rectangle of sunshine in the doorway was cut off."
Steinbeck portrays her in a horrible manner; he shows her as unintelligent and unimportant figures. Curley's wife is a prime example of how Steinbeck presents women; she is the most prominent woman in the book, so there are more citations about her.
She uses the fact she is a vulnerable female against Crooks and is very racist towards him. ‘Well you keep your trap shut then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.’ This is a definite threat to Crooks. This shows that the social attitudes at the time were extremely racist and she chooses him because he is the most weak and least able to defend himself. She was going to accuse him of sexual assault and his black skin she knew would add to the problem. This gives her some status and power despite her because she is the only woman though her unpopular husband actually makes her an outcast on the farm. Nobody will want to converse with her because they fear her husband, and because they would automatically tar her with the same brush as they had him, which is to be extremely unreasonable and disrespectful, not to mention
Steinbeck uses many different techniques to present Curley's wife such as colour imagery, appearance, metaphors and similes in the early stages of the novel. The effect of these techniques is that the reader creates a mental image of Curley's wife even before she even enters the novel.
This perception is further emphasized by Curley's Wife's first appearance in the novel. Steinbeck uses light symbolically to show that she can be imposing when he writes, "The rectangle of sunshine in the doorway was cut off."
Steinbeck portrays her in a horrible manner; he shows her as unintelligent and unimportant figures. Curley's wife is a prime example of how Steinbeck presents women; she is the most prominent woman in the book, so there are more citations about her.
She uses the fact she is a vulnerable female against Crooks and is very racist towards him. ‘Well you keep your trap shut then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.’ This is a definite threat to Crooks. This shows that the social attitudes at the time were extremely racist and she chooses him because he is the most weak and least able to defend himself. She was going to accuse him of sexual assault and his black skin she knew would add to the problem. This gives her some status and power despite her because she is the only woman though her unpopular husband actually makes her an outcast on the farm. Nobody will want to converse with her because they fear her husband, and because they would automatically tar her with the same brush as they had him, which is to be extremely unreasonable and disrespectful, not to mention