Curley's Wife Symbolism

One of the main characters in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is Curley’s wife and the writer uses this character to be a symbol for danger in the novella. “She had full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red, her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages.” That was the first image that Steinbeck put in or minds of Curley’s wife, without knowing anything about her we imagine her like that for the rest of the novella, the image is stuck in our heads. When speaking about Curley’s wife you can either understand where she is coming from or we could be against her, there’s no middle stance. Personally, I empathize and sympathize with Curley’s wife because she is just that thing, that thing that symbolizes

In the novella, Curley’s wife is referred to as “jailbait” who is defined as “a young woman, or young women collectively, considered in sexual terms but under the age of consent.” (In the oxford dictionary) she always has a ton of makeup on and is always trying to flirt with the men that work in the ranch. If we deeply look into the reason why she does all this, why does she put so much make up on? Why is she always flirting with the men? We can see that she is seeking attention; she is seeking the attention that she is not receiving from her husband. When we look into all of that we can conclude that she is lonely, she has no one to talk to no friends and no family she has no one except fir husband who doesn’t give her any attention, throughout the whole novella never do we ever see him and his wife encountering each other they are always looking for each other. She is looking for him, or he is looking for her, they are never together. So, I don’t blame her for what she is doing her life is not what she expected it to be she had hopes and dreams were crushed and ruined when she married Curley just like her death ruined and crushed George and Lennie’s hopes and