Of Mice and Men. Curley's Wife

My eldest son wrote this as a set of notes for my youngest son. He wrote it off the top of his head 5 years after he did it at GCSE. I don't like to trumpet my kids achievements - they're just normal kids.. but I was blown away by this.

Curley's Wife

Firstly, she doesn't have a name. She is identified by her relationship to Curley, her husband. This restricts how much the reading can relate to the character, the lack of name signifies an incomplete character. It means that the character can be read as representing various themes. Themes like the role of women, the role of tragedy and the role of the American Dream. Her name is also possessional, in that she as a wife belongs to Curley. 

She is the only woman on the farm, and this is important because it reinforces the divide between Curley & his wife and the rest of the characters. She is a symbol of temptation within the novel, because she flirts with the workmen. This may reflect the time period and social setting of the novel, where typically male itinerant farmers moved from farm to farm seeking employment. In this way of life, women were not judged to have a place because it was hard to hold down a relationship whilst always moving. This culminates in the scene where Lennie strokes her hair and crushes her skull, the frailness of the female body gives way to the strength of the male body. So there is a male/female oppositional there as well.

Her story about her acting (?) career is a commentary on the American Dream and how it doesn't always seem to be realistic. Steinbeck blows apart the idea of the American Dream throughout the novel, and Curley's wife is no exception. The fact that her story is so tragic, when her dreams were set so high marks the difference between the harsh realities of the 30's era Depression America and the hangover American Dream from the roaring 20's. Steinbeck himself was a social-minded author and a lot of his books were about workers and labourers in predominantly Western States in the USA, and criticising the politicians who had caused the Great Depression. 

Related to this, the tragedy of her death and the subsequent unhappy conclusion of the novella paint a pessimistic picture of the world. Coupled with the tragedy of George & Lennie's stories and that of Candy (?), the old man, Steinbeck seems to suggest that loss and hardship is a very big part of the lives of people out in the South-West. 

I've not changed a single comma. He has such an elegant and flowing style for a 20 year old. I am truly awed by it.