Curley's wife

Curley’s wife is the wife of the boss son, Curley. She is lonely and different because she is a woman. Perhaps to signify the fact that she is insignificant, though not to this novel, she is called Curley’s wife, and not given a name. She is heavily made up with contrasting colours on her face.

She has blond hair with a flick at the end. She wears a cotton housedress. All of the workers on the farm spread rumours about her, and all conversations about her are negative. They are frightened to talk to her because she can make up things about those that she dislikes, and tell Curley. Curley can tell the boss, and subsequently they will get the ‘can’. She was promised fine things in show business by an old lover, who promised to write.

She never got letters, and blamed it on her family, and left home. On the rebound she met Curley and married him because he was there. She doesn’t like him, and says that ‘he ain’t nice’. She feels that all she is good for on the ranch is staying in Curley’s house. In order to liven things up for her, she is always looking for Curley, so she has an excuse to go in the barn and talk to the men. She isn’t really a tart, she just does things to get attention, which she doesn’t get from Curley.

Curley’s wife’s loneliness causes her to talk to Lennie, because only he will let her talk eventually. They have got a lot in common, not physically, but they are both lonely and excluded from the others. She does not know Lennie and that inevitably causes her death. Lennie accidentally hurts her by tugging her hair, and she screams. Since Lennie doesn’t want to get into trouble with George, and doesn’t know better he takes it into his own hands to stop her, and it even takes him a while to realise she is dead. Candy realises that their dream is never going to come true, and the truth comes back to George. He realises that he only believed it because he kept saying it to Lennie. George and Candy both know that this incident will mean that they will not see neither each other for much longer, nor Lennie.