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I don’t care what she says and what she does. I seen ‘em poison before, but I never seen no jail bait worse than her. You leave her be”(Steinbeck 44). George is making bad inferences about Curley’s wife before he even gets to know her. The way Curley’s wife presents herself does not help her cause in being mistreated, by her husband or any of the other men on the
Curley’s wife responds with, “Aw, nuts! What kinda harm am I doin’ to you? Seems like they ain’t none of them cares how I gotta live… I don’ like Curley. He ain’t a nice fella… Coulda been in the movies, an’ had nice clothes…”
The escalating frequency of school shootings throughout the years has become an alarming issue, raising the question as to why one would commit such a horrific act. On December 14th, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother and soon after drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School where he proceeded to kill twenty first grade students and six school employees. Lanza, a troubled individual with a history of various mental health issues, including schizophrenia and Aspergers Syndrome, was profoundly engrossed with violent video games, firearms, and the narratives of mass shootings. Examining Adam Lanza’s violence through the perspective of James Gilligan's Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic, it becomes apparent
In the novel, ¨Of Mice and Men,¨ the author, John Steinbeck, develops complex characters which opens the story up for interpretation. Steinbeck uses both direct and indirect characterization, which forces the reader to infer important traits about each characters. An example of a character is Crooks, a colored man working on a ranch during the Great Depression. Being the only black man on the ranch, Crooks is often looked down on as a stable bunk, and is not respected as the other men are. Because of this, Crooks is perceived as powerless.
Someone once said, “A villain is just a victim whose story hasn’t been told.” The character known as Curley’s Wife in Of Mice and Men is portrayed in John Steinbeck’s writing as an antagonist. Multiple time throughout the book she is insulted by the men, who call her things such as a tramp, or a tart. As the story continues, there are many hidden indications that she could be seen as a much simpler, innocent presence, rather than an evil. When looked at more in depth, Curley’s Wife can be seen as a victimized character.
She was the only woman on the ranch, and being beautiful, she was in the eyes of all the men working there. Of course they all knew if they did anything about it, Curley would probably kill them. At first we didn’t feel very sympathetic for Curley’s wife because she seemed like she didn’t have any interest in being married. She was flirting with the other guys when she went into the bunkhouse, it didn't seem like she cared that
Despite being the only female on a ranch full of foul-mouthed men, Curley 's wife exploits both her sexuality and her status to demonstrate power throughout the novel. For instance, when first meeting Curley’s wife she attempts to enhance her body for the new men: “She put her hands behind her back and leaned against the door frame so that her body was thrown forward” (31). From Curley’s wife’s actions we learn that since the beginning she finds it necessary to flaunt her body, instead of showing her real personality. Furthermore, she is using her physical attraction to portray an appearance that is automatically seducing in hopes of placing herself above the newly arriving men. After Crooks tells Curley’s wife to get out of the barn, she erupts
She uses her power to dominate over Crooks, Lennie and Candy ‘left all the weak ones here’ this signifies that, similarly to Curley, she likes to stir trouble and mock people who are weaker than her to make herself feel better and boost her confidence, however this is showing the reader the opposite of what Curley’s wife wants us to think, it shows that internally she is damaged and lack confidence and happiness. In this chapter, Curley’s wife picks on all the characters, she firstly points out Candy’s old age and calls him a ‘lousy ol’ sheep’ showing her disrespecting character to the elderly, this could be because she doesn’t get any respect and so treats people like they treat her. Moreover, she uses her power to threaten Crooks, who is the only black character in the novella, ‘I could get you strung up on a tree’ this illustrates the verbal abuse black Americans had to endure in the 1930s society. Overall in this chapter, we see that Curley’s wife is self-obsessed and lives in her own word, she feeds on other people to make herself look better in her own
Whenever Curley leaves, the old swamper comes in and starts gossiping again. Candy was talking
Curley’s wife also states, as she targets Crooks, “Well, you keep your place then, nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny” (81). Curley's wife feel she needs to prove her own authority as Curley’s wife by picking on social outcasts, because she knows she has no power over anyone else on the entire ranch and she is tired of feel empowered all the time. She uses her beauty to give her power over the men, and her position as a white person and the boss’ son’s wife to pick on a social outcast, such as a black person like
In John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck uses a line from Robert Burns poem “To a Mouse” to portray the theme that the main characters failure is inevitable; the forces acting upon this are Lennie’s display of his growing disability, and that nobody believes they can do it, plus the men’s inability to stay in one place. First of all, Steinbeck uses Lennie’s growing disability as a force acting on the main characters inevitable failure. After taking away a dead mouse, George said, “that mouse ain’t fresh, Lennie; and besides you’ve broke it pettin’ it” (9). This is the first time we see that Lennie is capable of hurting small things down to killing them. He did proclaim that he didn’t kill the mouse but George told the readers that this isn’t the first
The author showed that Curley's wife is an outcast by not giving her a name at any point in the novel. This makes it obvious that women are treated less than men, especially at this time. The book’s setting is the 1930s around the time of the Great Depression (Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Ketcham). During this time women were looked at and treated as less than men in almost every aspect of daily life. Steinbeck wanted to keep her unnamed to show that she was a stray.
Curley’s wife wanted Crooks to be at his weakest point, by attacking the thing that defines him most: his skin color. Similar to how Crooks attacked the two things that define
A Misunderstanding Without History We all have that one character we extremely hate, whether it 's in a book or show, you just want them to die. However, not all characters should be hated to the core, many have their own reasons. In the novel “Of Mice and Men,” by John Steinbeck, the author illustrates how readers can easily misinterpret Curley’s wife without any historical context, through the need of companionship of Curley’s wife, wishing to reach to her dreams and the desire to have freedom. To begin with women in the 1930’s, they desired to seek one that can understand and support their hardships.
World of Sexism Due to the Great Depression, women’s rights took a back seat to employment and poverty. It was believed that women shouldn’t work but stay at home, clean, cook, and raise their children. The prejudice against women in the society was great back in the 1930s for they were degraded and underestimated. All the rights they had gained in the 1920s were neglected and the women were once again maltreated. In Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the victim of sexism is Curley’s wife who is so insignifact that even a name was not provided for her.