âOf Mice and Menâ: In a letter .John Steinbeck Wrote of Curleyâs wife: âSheâs a nice girl and not a floozy.â Discuss and explain your own impression of Curleyâs wife.
In âOf Mice and Menâ John Steinbeck describes Curleyâs wife as a character of many contradictions she is shown as both a nice girl and a floozy; lonely yet vindictive; Motherly but also seductive. In this essay I will try to discuss both of her sides.
Throughout the novel Curleyâs wife acts and dresses as a floozy; in the very beginning when we first see her she is dressed up nice and has her nails painted red which in those days was a sign of danger, she dresses in very good quality clothes and takes care of herself much more then she should as she is in a ranch full of men and has chores as all the women those days had. She spends too much time on her appearance, in the novel it says she has rouge lips, hair in little sausages, and not only is she dressed very nice, she also acts very seductive by showing off her womanly parts âshe put her hands behind her back and leaned against the door frame so her body was thrown forwardâ. She leans against the door frame teasing the men, she knows she will get lots of attention because she is a young pretty girl and the men are always in the ranch and she is the only girl there.
She also talks very flirtatiously with the men as she says things âplayfullyâ showing she has no interest of finding her husband as she intended to do in the first place. When she is about to leave she says âNobody canât blame a person for lookinââ which has a double meaning. It can be interpreted as you canât blame a person for looking which would mean you cannot blame her for looking for Curley and you cannot blame a person for looking and admiring her.
Also, when she enters the bunkhouse she says âIâm lookinâ for Curleyâ which is a lie because she is only saying that to flirt and talk to the men. We can tell that because when Slim says he has just seen Curley heading toward their house, she immediately becomes apprehensive and heads away because she does not want to be seen flirting with the men. The men know that she
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