In the novella Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck depicts Curley’s wife as a misunderstood person who has a bad reputation so in the end she didn’t deserve to die. Everybody is told to stay away from Curley’s wife because she is trouble, but in reality she is just misunderstood. She gets angry when people look at her as a bad person and she tells Lennie, “‘Wha’s the matter with me?’ she cried. ‘Ain’t I got a right to talk to nobody? Whatta they think I am, anyways? You’re a nice guy. I don’t know why I can’t talk to you. I ain’t doin’ no harm to you.’” This means that she doesn’t really look for trouble at all. All she wants is some attention and you can tell she wants attention because in this book everyone does because they are lonely. In this way we can see that she is misunderstood in the fact that she doesn’t go around looking for trouble as they say but rather going around looking for attention. Curley’s wife, like everyone else in the story, has a dream too. Her dream was to become an actor but her mother crushed her dream, which resulted in Curley’s wife leaving he mom. She confides in Lennie by telling him, “Well, I wasn’t gonna stay no place where I couldn’t get nowhere or make something of myself, an’ where they stole your letters. I ast her if she stole it, too, an’ she says no. So I married Curley. Met him out to the Riverside Dance Palace that same night.” This means that we know that she married Curley to get away from her mother’s house. It is important because now we know the real reason she left. This shows that she is really misunderstood because she had a dream and now she is stuck in a place where she can’t do anything, which makes things worse. The biggest piece of information that she gives Lennie about her is about her relationship with Curley. She says, “Well, I ain’t told this to nobody before. Maybe I ought’n to. I don’ like Curley. He ain’t a nice fella.” This means that the reason she never is with Curley and they are always looking for each other is because she is trying to avoid him. This goes to show that she isn’t trouble but that she is just trying to not feel lonely just like everyone in the story. This really proves the thesis because she is really misunderstood and she is pictured as a bad person but it shows she isn’t. In reality she is just trying to get some attention, and wishes that she could just accomplish her dream. She just wants what everyone else wants. The only difference is that because she is with Curley, he gives her the bad image. So in the end she didn’t deserve to die because she wasn’t bad only misunderstood.
