Curley's Wife Flashcards
(12 cards)
Candy says ‘She got the eye’
(Gender Inequality)
This shows how the men on the ranch view Curley’s Wife as a flirtatious woman especially Candy as he’s a bitter misogynist. However, they don’t know that she is extremely lonely due to the prejudice and misogyny women face in society.
George also says that Curley’s Wife is ‘a tramp’ and ‘jail bait’(metaphor)
(Gender Inequality)
George, however, uses misogynistic language to make sure Lennie doesn’t interact with her as they don’t want trouble with Curley and also because they see her as a femme fatale. This underlines how lonely women were in society.
Curley’s Wife says ‘Ain’t I got a right to talk to you?’
(Gender Inequality)
This rhetorical question emphasises how men marginalised women due to the patriarchal society that they were living in. She challenges society’s norms.
‘rouged lips’, ‘red mules’, red ‘fingernails’
(Objectification)
The colour red associates her with danger which is why the men on the ranch stay away from her.
‘Glove fulla vaseline’
(Objectification)
Shows how Curley saw his wife as an object and is keeping his hands soft to caress her.
‘Curley’s Wife’
(Objectification)
Steinbeck deliberately never names her. She exists only in relation to her husband, reinforcing her lack of identity and autonomy. This fits the 1930s expectation that women were their husbands’ property. The possessive apostrophe literally marks her as belonging to Curley.
She was ‘suddenly apprehensive’
Carlson to Candy ‘Why didn’t you tell her to stay the hell home…’
(Objectification Domestically)
This shows how women in society were meant to stay in their domestic sphere and know their place. This prejudice is what contributes majorly to her loneliness.
However, she says that she’s looking for her husband, but this is just an excuse to socialise with the men on the ranch and leave her domestic sphere, highlighting her extreme loneliness.
‘I get lonely’
(Loneliness)
highlights her emotional starvation and longing for human connection. Her sentence structure is childlike, exposing vulnerability and naivety. In 1930s patriarchal society, women were often confined to the domestic space and denied companionship outside their marriage, reinforcing their emotional isolation.
Her words ‘tumbled out in passion’
(Loneliness)
This shows how her loneliness results in her death, highlighting how women couldn’t escape loneliness in that society.
The men ‘close ranks’ when she comes; however she lashes out and says ‘listen nigh…’
Backed up with ‘strung up on a tree’
(Loneliness Makes Her Racist)
Her use of racial slurs shows the impacts of being prejudiced, highlighting how prejudice breeds prejudice and how it destroys the fabric of society. It also shows how she doesn’t want to be lonely anymore.
She says that she ‘coulda been in the movies’
‘Coulda made something of myself’
(Dreams and Powerlessness)
Her death illustrates the death of people’s dreams in society and how it’s all just a cultural myth and dreams are futile. She also married Curley hoping for him to help her with her dream however he didn’t.
Steinbeck describes her at death as ‘at peace’ and ‘her face was sweet and young’
(Powerlessness)
This visual imagery shows the powerlessness women have in society and how they escape prejudice and misogyny only when she’s dead.
