Curley's Wife Character Analysis

Of Mice and Men Curley’s Wife Character Analysis: Who she is in one sentence

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Curley’s wife is the only woman on the ranch, judged by every man there before she speaks a word, never given a name of her own, and described kindly by Steinbeck exactly once, after she is dead.

What she does

In Chapter 2 she is discussed before she appears. Candy tells George what the men think of her. Then she stands in the bunkhouse doorway looking for Curley, and the light from outside is cut off behind her.

She leaves when Slim says Curley has gone to the house. George warns Lennie off her immediately and calls her trouble.

She appears again in Chapter 4, in Crooks’s room, looking for Curley when she knows he is not there. She stays because the three men there are the only people who will listen to her.

When they try to send her away she mocks them as the weak ones left behind. When Crooks tells her to leave his room, she threatens to have him lynched, and he goes silent.

In Chapter 5 she finds Lennie alone in the barn with the dead puppy. She tells him about her life, her mother, and the letter that never came. She says she does not like Curley.

She offers to let Lennie stroke her hair. He holds on too hard and will not let go. She screams, he panics, and he breaks her neck.

What she wants

She wants somebody to talk to. She says so directly and repeatedly, and nobody on the ranch treats it as a reasonable request.

“I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely.”
Curley’s wife, to Lennie in Chapter 5.

The line that turns her from a threat into a person. Essential for any character question about her. Notice she says it to the one man on the ranch who has no idea what she is talking about.

She also wants the life she believes was taken from her. A man once told her she could be in pictures and promised to write. She believes her mother took the letter.

“I coulda made somethin’ of myself.”
Curley’s wife, in Chapter 5.

She has a broken dream too. Use this to argue that Steinbeck gives every character one and takes it away from all of them. Hers failed before the novel started.

Key quotes

“I think Curley’s married… a tart.”
Candy, to George in Chapter 2.

She is judged before she has spoken a word, and by a character the reader has been encouraged to like. Quote this at the start of any answer about her, because everything the reader thinks at first is borrowed from the men.

“I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.”
Curley’s wife, to Crooks in Chapter 4.

The cruellest line in the novel, and it comes from the person with the least power on the ranch. Use it to show that she is not simply a victim. She is trapped and she is dangerous, and both things are consequences of the same system.

“You can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad. How’d you like not to talk to anybody?”
Curley’s wife, in Chapter 5.

Her marriage described as confinement. Put this beside Crooks in a paragraph about the ranch’s outsiders. The two of them make the same complaint, and the same place refuses it.

“And the meanness and the plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face. She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young.”
The narrator, after her death in Chapter 5.

Steinbeck describes her kindly only once she can no longer act. Read the list carefully. Meanness, planning, discontent, an ache for attention. He is naming what the ranch saw in her and saying it has gone. He is not saying it was never real. He is saying it was what living there did to her.

What she stands for

She stands for how a place decides what a person is. Every description of her before Chapter 5 is about paint, red nails and rolled curls, or about what the men have concluded. Steinbeck gives you their verdict first so that you accept it.

She has no name in the entire novel. She is only ever somebody’s wife. That is a deliberate choice and it is worth one sentence in any answer about her.

She stands for loneliness in a form the book does not otherwise show. Crooks is excluded by race, Candy by age and injury. She is excluded by being the only woman in a world of men who have decided in advance what she is for.

She also stands for how powerlessness travels downhill. She has almost no power and she uses what she has on Crooks. Steinbeck refuses to make her purely sympathetic, and the answer that handles that honestly is the strongest one.

Two strong essay angles

1. The two descriptions. Use this for questions on a character you felt sorry for, or on how a writer shapes your view. Set her first appearance in Chapter 2, all surface and make-up, against the description of her face after death. Argue that the gap between them is Steinbeck’s whole point about how she was seen.

2. Victim and aggressor at once. Use this for questions on a complex character or a scene that changed your view. In one chapter she admits her loneliness and threatens a man with lynching. Do not pick one half. Argue that the ranch produced both, and that this is why she is more than a plot device.

Common mistake

The most common mistake on this text is writing that she caused her own death by flirting with Lennie. That is the bunkhouse view and Steinbeck is criticising it. She is lonely and talking to the one person who will listen. She offers her hair to a man she has no reason to fear. An answer that blames her has taken the men’s side without noticing it has done so. Be careful here, because examiners notice it immediately.

Quick recall

1. What is Curley’s wife’s name?

She is never given one. She is only ever described in relation to her husband, which is a deliberate choice by Steinbeck.

2. How is she first described?

Through appearance. Full rouged lips, wide-spaced eyes heavily made up, red fingernails, and hair in little rolled clusters. Her first appearance is all surface.

3. What do the men say about her?

Candy calls her a tart before she has spoken. George calls her poison and warns Lennie to leave her alone. The reader gets their verdict before she gets a scene.

4. Why does she keep appearing in doorways looking for Curley?

Because it is the only excuse she has to talk to anybody. She admits in Chapter 5 that she is not allowed to speak to anyone but her husband.

5. What does she do to Crooks in Chapter 4?

She threatens to have him lynched when he tells her to leave his room. The threat is credible and he stops speaking immediately.

6. What does she call the men left behind on the ranch?

The weak ones. It is accurate, and it includes her, which is part of why she says it with such contempt.

7. What was her dream?

To be in pictures. A man told her she had the ability and promised to write to her. The letter never arrived and she believes her mother took it.

8. What does she say about her marriage?

That she does not like Curley and that he is not a nice man. She married him soon after the letter failed to arrive.

9. How does she die?

She lets Lennie stroke her hair. He holds on, she screams, and he covers her mouth and shakes her to keep her quiet, breaking her neck.

10. Why does the description of her after death matter?

Because it is the only time the novel describes her kindly. Steinbeck lists the qualities the ranch saw in her and says they are gone, suggesting they were produced by her life there.

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