The powerlessness of Curley's wife is in part because she
is never named other than by her association/possession by Curley. She is also ignored
and condemned by the men on the ranch because they are afraid of Curley. She is
powerless to change her position or better it, and listlessly goes from one
uncontrollable situation to another, with the presumption that she has control. She
left her mother’s house when she married Curley, thinking that it would prove a point to
her mother. Since her mother is not present in the text, one can assume that the point,
whatever it was, was never proved. She thinks she has control, but does not, which is
cemented when Lennie breaks her neck by simply shaking her. She is weak and
insubstantial.
As for language in Of Mice and
Men, there is a contrast between Steinbeck’s descriptive prose and the vernacular of the
men. They speak like men on a ranch would have spoken—roughly and bluntly and without
recourse to who might hear them. The language is very
realistic.
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