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“Both men glanced up, for the rectangle of sunshine in...”

written by Janet Lewison on 02/08/2010

Both men glanced up, for the rectangle of sunshine in the doorway

was cut off. A girl was standing there looking in. She had full,

rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails

were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages.

She wore a cotton house dress and red mules, on the insteps of which

were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers. "I'm lookin' for

Curley," she said. Her voice had a nasal, brittle quality.





George looked away from her and then back. "He was in here a

minute ago, but he went."





"Oh!" She put her hands behind her back and leaned against the

door frame so that her body was thrown forward. "You're the new fellas

that just come, ain't ya?"





"Yeah."





Lennie's eyes moved down over her body, and though she did not

seem to be looking at Lennie she bridled a little. She looked at her

fingernails. "Sometimes Curley's in here," she explained.





George said brusquely. "Well he ain't now."





"If he ain't, I guess I better look some place else," she said

playfully.





Lennie watched her, fascinated. George said, "If I see him, I'll

pass the word you was looking for him."





She smiled archly and twitched her body. "Nobody can't blame a

person for lookin'," she said. There were footsteps behind her,

going by. She turned her head. "Hi, Slim," she said.





Slim's voice came through the door. "Hi, Good-lookin'."





"I'm tryin' to find Curley, Slim."





"Well, you ain't tryin' very hard. I seen him goin' in your house."





She was suddenly apprehensive. "'Bye, boys," she called into the

bunkhouse, and she hurried away.



Curley's wife enters Steinbeck's Of mice and Men through the male dominated space that is the bunk room and immediately casts the two friends into darkness. She literally and metaphorically takes away their light presumably we assume, a foreshadowing of her role in the text. She will destroy their intimacy and even their lives. However she is also destroyed herself and she is notably only 'a girl' too. I do like the simplicity of Steinbeck's description and the momentum of the detail. We accumulate a picture of this nameless woman as if we are there with George and Lenny reviewing the appearance of this anomalous figure. For Curley's wife is an anomaly. She doesn't have a function on this ranch by reason of her sex and her effect on others seems disruptive if not cataclysmic.



The heavily sexualised appearance of Curley's wife is not of course only dependent upon the consuming and objectifying gaze of the male characters. It is also due to her attempt to emulate those film stars she aspires to become. This falsity therefore is emphasised through the very 'constructed' and even theatrical way she is made up. The reader recognises her identity is based on this debased copy cat performance of a film star and I have always wondered about the 'nasal brittle' quality of her voice. Why is this detail included by Steinbeck within the narrative, and what are its implications? Guy Clare pointed out to me from his situation as a vet, that her voice is probably nasal as it is unhealthy AND would preclude her becoming a film star as it is harsh and off putting. This seems very plausible and adds pathos to the description as it negates her dream and the novel is of course, all about dreams and their unrealities.