Curley's Wife Misogynist Analysis

Aristotle once said, “A proper wife should be as obedient as a slave… The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities... a natural defectiveness.” This shows how anyone can be misogynist. John Steinbeck grew up in California, in one of the richest agricultural places. This had significant impacts on his writing, primarily privilege. He worked on farms during his school holidays, helping him create understanding of agriculture, enough to give him ideas for one of his most famous books, Of Mice and Men. John Steinbeck displayed an outlook on life full of misogyny (dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women).

Portrayed through three wives and twenty-seven books, John Steinbeck’s misogynistic perspective self-exhibited

In Steinbeck’s book, Of Mice and Men, Curley's wife didn’t receive a name, or a title other than “Curley’s wife”. This shows that John Steinbeck thought of her as less than Curley and the other characters, who mostly were male, not only dominating the world of work, but literature as well. Curley’s wife was left vulnerable not only due to her gender, but her poverty level. Some people explain misogyny as a term that it is difficult to spell and effortlessly easy to practice. Steinbeck demonstrated and verified this quote, as he was a fantastic author, yet he used incorrect grammar, which some discredit him for, and he was seen as sexist. In John Steinbeck’s Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, Steinbeck states, “Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood signing their litanies in empty churches - nor is it a game for the cloistered elect, the tinhorn mendicants of low calorie despair.” This quote shows that Steinbeck thought writing and literature needed to be defended because people thought that it was simple and that anybody could do it. It was as though Steinbeck needed to reassure himself that what he was doing was difficult and not many people can do it. Of Mice and Men has prime examples of Steinbeck’s misogyny that the public eye saw, and often times, no one

‘In the world of his fiction women do have a place, but they seem compelled to choose between home-making and whoredom.’” (Gladstein 7). This quote displays how Steinbeck’s female characters were not educated, nor did they have supportive jobs or a husband to aid them financially, so they would have to resort to prostitution. Some women did not have an education, a job, or a husband, so they had to “made-do” with what they had, so they would sell their bodies for sex. Not only did this occur in everyday life, but John Steinbeck portrayed the ideas of prostitution