Curley’s Wife: A Women with No Name John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice And Men is about two men trying to seek the American Dream during the Great Depression. They travel to ranches in California to find new work and they end up on a ranch near Soledad. They meet many people but one in particular is Curley's Wife. She is the only woman on the ranch and is unable to attain her American Dream because she is undermined by all of men, especially her husband.
When Curley's Wife is first mentioned in the book, you wonder if we will ever learn her name and the answer is no. So immediately your thinking how cliche it is to not give the only woman in the book a name. Steinbeck most likely did this to emphasize the disrespect for women during this time. Women were expected to stay in the house to clean, cook, and take care of kids with no help from their husbands. Steinbeck shows this in the story when Curley's Wife is talking to Candy, Lennie and Crooks in the loft. She says
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Curley's wife talked to the three men that were left behind (Lennie, Crooks, Candy) when everyone went to the brothel about how she wanted her life to go. “I tell you I ain't used to livin’ like this. I coulda made somethin’ of myself” (88). She goes on to talk about a show that came into town and a guy told her she could go with that show and be in “pitchers”. The dream of most women in the late nineteen twenties, early thirties, was to make it big in Hollywood and that in fact was Curley's Wife dream. The reason she said she isn't “used to livin’ like this” was because the men on the ranch thought it was trouble to even talked to her so it seemed like no one cared. When the man approached her about going with the show she felt wanted and could see her whole future ahead of her so now that she's seeing how it's really turned out, she's upset. No one notices what she could have