Skip to main content

How does Steinbeck present Curley's Wife in Chapter 4 in Of Mice and Men?

When Crooks and Lennie are talking to Candy about their dream of having land in Crooks’s room in the stable, Curley’s wife comes in.  We have already been introduced to her.  The men on the ranch avoid her because they think she is trouble.  They worry that she is a tease.  Her entrance seems to confirm this reputation.



"Any you boys seen Curley?"


They swung their heads toward the door. Looking in was Curley's wife. Her face was heavily made up. Her lips were slightly parted. She breathed strongly, as though she had been running. (Ch. 4) 



Curley’s wife, Candy, and Crooks all have one thing in common—they are lonely.  They were getting along well until Curley’s wife came in.  She tells them that all men are scared, so she can get along with one man, but not a group. 


Curley’s wife uses the advantage of her status to be rude to the other men. She is racist to Crooks.  He was opening up to the other men, disarmed by Lennie’s honesty and genuine nature, but she turned him into a shell again. 


Candy stands up to her, telling her to get out.  She turns on him too, telling him the only reason he is hanging out with Crooks (and Lennie) is because he has no money. 



Curley's wife laughed at him. "Baloney," she said. "I seen too many you guys. If you had two bits in the worl', why you'd be in gettin' two shots of corn with it and suckin' the bottom of the glass. I know you guys." (Ch. 4) 



When the conversation turns to how Curley got hurt, she gets angry.  The story is that he got his had caught in a machine.  She knows this is not true, and asks Lennie about the bruises on his face.  Curley’s wife is irritated that they are not telling her the truth.  She teases Lennie, calling him “Machine.”  Candy tells her to leave Lennie alone.  Curley's wife zigzags from wanting to include herself in the men's lives because she is also lonely to belittling and condemning them.


While the reader often feels sorry for Curley's wife, her treatment of Crooks engenders no sympathy.  She treats him terribly, looking down on him because of his race.  He tries to tell her to leave, and she tells him he has no right to because he is black.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more