Heroes and Villains: Explore the ways sympathy for and/or dislike of a character is created in the text you have studied.
Heroes and Villains: Explore the ways sympathy for and/or dislike of a character is created in the text you have studied.
INTRODUCTION: In the novella ‘Of Mice and Men’, Steinbeck has used many different language features in order to create such a complex and sophisticated character whom I will be investigating - Curley’s wife. Curley’s wife is a pivotal character. She has been presented as a villain in the early stages of the book and her character seems to unravel as we read on. As a reader, we comprehend the factors which had influenced her actions and how living in a misogynistic society has affected the way she behaves - alternating the way we feel about this character and instead sympathy begins to develop, demolishing all the negativity that was created towards her in the first half of the novella. In this essay I will be exploring the language techniques that Steinbeck uses in order to create both sympathy and dislike for Curley’s wife.
DISLIKE: The first time we hear about Curley’s wife is from an unfavourable insight of her when Candy is in conversation with George and Lennie, which Steinbeck portrays through dialogue. We begin to perceive that Curley’s wife is a mean and seductive temptress as “she got they eye” and it has only been the period of two short weeks that she has been forced into a marital relationship with Curley, and is already beginning to commit signs of deceit. Due to Curley’s wife’s lack of power, she aims to attract the rancher’s attention through her physical appearance as this is the only method of gaining any form of communication with a person on the ranch. This quotation could also suggest that Curley’s wife is a ‘whore’ and has a wondering eye therefore proclaiming that she is a flirtatious, self obsessed and an egotistical woman who has the power to trap men in her very own spiraled web. However, during this time, women were seen as an object which held no power or dignity. They were degraded in their society and were
INTRODUCTION: In the novella ‘Of Mice and Men’, Steinbeck has used many different language features in order to create such a complex and sophisticated character whom I will be investigating - Curley’s wife. Curley’s wife is a pivotal character. She has been presented as a villain in the early stages of the book and her character seems to unravel as we read on. As a reader, we comprehend the factors which had influenced her actions and how living in a misogynistic society has affected the way she behaves - alternating the way we feel about this character and instead sympathy begins to develop, demolishing all the negativity that was created towards her in the first half of the novella. In this essay I will be exploring the language techniques that Steinbeck uses in order to create both sympathy and dislike for Curley’s wife.
DISLIKE: The first time we hear about Curley’s wife is from an unfavourable insight of her when Candy is in conversation with George and Lennie, which Steinbeck portrays through dialogue. We begin to perceive that Curley’s wife is a mean and seductive temptress as “she got they eye” and it has only been the period of two short weeks that she has been forced into a marital relationship with Curley, and is already beginning to commit signs of deceit. Due to Curley’s wife’s lack of power, she aims to attract the rancher’s attention through her physical appearance as this is the only method of gaining any form of communication with a person on the ranch. This quotation could also suggest that Curley’s wife is a ‘whore’ and has a wondering eye therefore proclaiming that she is a flirtatious, self obsessed and an egotistical woman who has the power to trap men in her very own spiraled web. However, during this time, women were seen as an object which held no power or dignity. They were degraded in their society and were