While her isolation on the ranch adds to her lack of
opportunities, the more intrinsic problem with Curley's wife's attainment of her dreams
is the fact that she is exploited by men and has no real identity. For, she is but a
genitive of her husband as indicated by her lack of a personal name, and her simply
being called "Curley's wife."
From her personal narrative
that she provides Lennie, the reader also discerns that her life has always been lived
in terms of men. When she was young, she tells Lennie, a show came through her town and
she met one of the actors,
"He says I could go with that show. But my
ol'lady wouldn' let me. She saysbecause I was on'y fifteen. But the guy says I
coulda. If I'd went, I wouldn't be livin' like this, you
bet."
"'Nother time I met a guy, an' he was in pitchers.
Went out to the Riverside Dance Palace with him. He says he was gonna put me in the
movies...."
Clearly, then,
Curley's wife's lack of true identity and dependency upon men have been
the greatest impediments towards her achieving any kind of individual dream. In a
male-driven society, she is lost whether she is in Salinas or on the
ranch.
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