Sympathy and Curley's Wife

P. We’ve talked a lot about how Steinbeck presents Curley’s Wife in a negative way. Even though we don’t have evidence yet about the good in her, we do, as a reader, feel sympathy towards her. Q. ‘Tell her to stay the hell home where she belongs.’ E. We begin to feel sympathy for her because… In this quote the alliterative ‘hell home’ emphasises where the men believe she belongs. Using the word ‘hell’ suggests… P. Another reason we feel sympathy for her is how women are treated in America at this time. Q. ‘you give me a good whore house every time.’

Jail bait

P – After seeing her for the first time, George says this about Curley’s Wife: Q – ‘I never seen no piece of jail bait worse than her.’ E – Jail bait is another example of slang. It means…. George also uses a double negative ‘no’ and ‘never.’ This emphasises how negatively he views Curley’s Wife. He sees her as ‘bait,’ which will lure men to ‘jail,’ both of these adjectives are very negative, giving us more evidence that Curley’s Wife is only shown as a bad person.

Curley's Wife and her phallic hair...!

P – The way Steinbeck describes her suggests the negative, promiscuous nature, of her character. Q – ‘Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages.’ E – The simile is repeated by Steinbeck in the novel. This gives it extra significance. By comparing her hair to the sausages, Steinbeck creates phallic imagery here, the sausage is representative of the penis. This emphasises her sexual nature. The simile could also suggest that her hair is full bodied and ‘meaty’ or that it is greasy. It is ironic that her hair is curly and she is married to Curley, perhaps Steinbeck is creating a pun here.

Of Mice and Men

How do writers present the good and bad in people? Point – Relates to the question Quote – Your evidence taken from the text Explanation – Explain how your quote proves your point. Talk about language features. (That’s the English bit!) P – Before we even meet Curley’s Wife we get a negative impression of her from Candy. Q – ‘Tart’ E – The way that Candy describes her, using slang, gives us the negative impression, because ‘tart’ in this case means someone who is sexually permissive. P – Another negative impression we get of Curley’s Wife is when we first meet her in the book. Q ‘A girl was standing there looking in. she had full rouged lips…heavily made up. Her fingernails were red”. E – Steinbeck repeats the word ‘red’ in his description of Curley’s Wife. Red is usually associated with… (add your own ideas) Our connotations of this mean that we think Curley’s Wife is… (add your own ideas) which is negative.