Sexism In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men And The Pearl

All over the world, in the past and even today, there has been a major problem called sexism. Women everywhere are being oppressed and marginalized. There are no real reasons for this, except for the fact that they are women. John Steinbeck’s exploration of a real-world issue, which is sexism, is clearly shown in Of Mice and Men and The Pearl through the characters of Curley’s wife and Juana.

In one of John Steinbeck’s novels, Of Mice and Men, Curley’s wife is always marginalized due to the fact that she is a woman. Curley's wife is, without a doubt, not treated with much respect. She is barely given any importance by the men at the ranch. A very evident way this is shown is her name. Her real name isn't mentioned even once in the entire

Curley’s wife is eventually killed, but others are still looking to push blame for their suffering onto her. When Candy’s plan to leave with George and Lennie failed, he yells at Curley’s wife's dead boys and says, “‘You Goddamn tramp,’ he said viciously. ‘You done it, di’n’t you? I s’pose you're glad. Ever’body knowed you'd mess things up. You wasn't no good. You ain't no good now, you lousy tart’” (Of Mice and Men 95). Similar to this, Kino takes advantage of Juana and attacks her when she was trying to do something to help them both. While trying to throw the pearl back into the ocean, “He leaped at her and caught her arm and wrenched the pearl from her. He struck her in the face with his clenched fist and she fell among the boulders, and he kicked her in the side...there was no anger in her for Kino” (The Pearl 59). The occurrences occurred specifically with these two characters because they were the only two women in each of the books. Steinbeck found it necessary to include that in the end, no matter how innocent or intelligent a person was (or wasn't) the only thing that mattered was if she was a woman. In Curley’s wife’s case, she was being blamed for something solely for the reason of her being a woman. Technically speaking, the real reason Candy, George, and Lennie's plan got called off was because Lennie killed Curley’s wife, and George did not think it was possible to go without him. However, Candy takes his anger out of Curley’s wife just because she is the person that Lennie killed. Even though she is dead, he shows her no mercy. She is stilled called names. It is as if it doesn't even matter whether she is alive or dead- she will still be treated the same. Juana is severely injured due to her husband’s anger against her. In this moment he doesn't care that she is his own wife. He sees that she is an