OMAM Guidance Questions 4-22-15

Prompt:  Describe the atmosphere of the ranch and bunkhouse. Be sure to include characteristics of different characters that were formally or informally introduced to us in this chapter. Support your choice with textual evidence and interpretation.  Why doesn't Curley's wife have a name?   What message, if anything, is John Steinbeck  trying to send by not giving her a first name?  Support your choice with textual evidence and interpretation.

Date:  4-22-15

Commented on:  Mia C., Saul G., and Siari R.

          I feel that by describing the bunkhouse and ranch, the author is kind of setting the stage for future events or for the ongoing plot.  The bunkhouse seems a little eerie because of the described lighting, and the characters on the ranch all have unique personalities.  What I've noticed, is that no men are traveling together like George and Lennie are.  They all seem to be taking their own paths, in their own way.  Slim even explicitly states it when he says, "Funny how you an' him string along together."   He also says, "Oh, I dunno.  Hardly none of the guys ever travel together."  This tells me that I was right when I thought that there weren't too many other pairs.  All of the men have different personalities, either explicitly, or implicitly described, or both.  There's George who has a really bad temper, and is, in a way, street smart.  He watches out for Lennie as well.  Lennie is a big, lumbering man, who wouldn't purposely hurt anyone.  He's very slow when it comes to thinking, and seems to be mentally disabled in some way.  Another character is Curley, and he seems to be becoming the main antagonist.  He's starting to pick on Lennie, just because Lennie's big, and he seems extremely arrogant and cocky.  I can identify Curley's personality in the book when it says, "Curley's like a lot of little guys, he hates big guys.  He's alla time picking scraps with big guys  Kind of like he's mad at em' because he ain't a big guy.  You seen little guys like that, ain't you?  Always scrappy?"  That statement tells readers a little bit about Curley and sets the scene for possible future events.

          I think that by not giving Curley's Wife a first name, Steinbeck is trying to show how women were unfairly looked at in the past.  They didn't have rights as men did, and they were almost looked at as a piece of property.  This has definitely changed as we've moved into the future, but we have to remember when reading this book, that the past was a completely different time.  If all the guys on the ranch respected her for her personality and didn't just pay attention to how she looked, and they didn't look at her as property, they might have called her by her first name.  In the book, they call her "Curley's Wife", and they also called her several offensive names, such as "tart".  They describe her as a lady who dresses and acts teasingly, and she's always giving other men, "The eye."  The book has Candy and George having a convorsation about her, and they say, "Purty?' he asked.  'Yeah.  Purty... but --'   'But what?'   'Well, - she got the eye."  This tells me that they're judging Curley's Wife, and that they don't really respect her that much.