Similarities Between Lady Macbeth And Curley's Wife

Compare Lady Macbeth to Curley’s Wife and suggest ideas about the society at that time according to these characters.

Discrimination against women has been widespread throughout all periods of times, They have been viewed as sex objects and property of their husbands. Lady Macbeth and Curley’s wife are prime examples of this because their names were not revealed but they were polar opposites to the average women in their times.

‘Of mice and men’ written by John Steinbeck in 1930s. The character of Curley’s wife demonstrates what a women shouldn't be like in the society at that time. As, they should be possessed by their husbands and working housewives. The fact that she didn’t even have a name suggests that she was like a possession to her

When we first meet her in act 1 scene 5 we straight away, without hesitation, think that she is ‘evil’, ‘wicked’ and ‘temptress ‘as she plans the murder of King Duncan . In addition to this, she questions Macbeth’s masculinity she does what a woman can’t even think to do back then and is very domineering over Macbeth she is also very manipulative over Macbeth and calls him not a man. Moreover, she is full of spiral of disappointment when she finds out that Macbeth feels remorseful. She has all qualities a man would have over a woman. Similarly, both characters don’t really have any name or identity and both die towards the end. Both societies at the time were powerless, lonely, controlled and were ambitious due to the way their husband treated

Steinbeck suggests of death as opposed to sensuality by stating that Curley’s wife’s lips were ‘parted’ meaning she was pouting even though she has died so it is hard to tell if she is alive or dead but has lost all her character’s traits. Though Curley’s wife was portrayed badly by some of the men at the ranch, Steinbeck could be targeting Curley’s wife as all the women in the novella are either presented as motherly figure such as ‘Lennie’s Aunt Clara’ or a very sexual character like the women in brothel or Curley’s wife, this could purposely be showing the stereotypical figures to inform the men to treat women as their equals.

Curley’s wife always hide her identity from people and told everyone she ‘ coulda made somethin of myself’ and uses her mum as an excuse of not achieving her dream which I think is a lie because she is trying to hide the shame that she couldn’t make anything of herself as it is a disappointment after all. This is why she always shows off her past to other men in the ranch and I suppose is the reason why men were out off