Beyond the Line

Of Mice and Men, which was a novel wrote by John Steinbeck, a story book about Lennie and George. In this book there were mostly talking about men, but the only female in this novel, Curley’s wife, was also a important character, she has got no name. From this book, we could receive the message the author want to send to us.

Curley’s wife, who got no name for her from start to the end, the only thing we know about her is that she is Curley’s wife, and she’s a trouble one, men in the farm always saying that don’t fooling around with her, or she will get you in a big trouble. From this point, we could tell that people thought women were bad if you always get around with them, and then they will make you get in a hot water.


From this story book, we could also tell how the life was for those poor women in the early time in America. Women got no power, because the author doesn’t even mention the name of this woman, instead he uses Curley’s wife. Also they were less equal than the men did, there always had something that women were not allowing to do, they can’t talk to other men if they get married, the only thing they can do is staying home, and waiting for their husband coming back from the farm.

Women in that time couldn’t even persuade their dream, what their parents think is that women should only be staying home, and married someone when they were at that aged, the dream for those women seems nonsense to others, there was no way for they to do that. They got no permission to go to anywhere, because people at that time thought that men could earn the money and feed them, while women should not be out of somewhere working around with men. I think this is just like the old time in China, those young women spend most of their life in house, and have babies for their husband, and when their kids were born, they would educated them, they could barely step their feet out of their big gate, that’s a pity for those women during the old era.

In the end of this story, Curley’s wife really made men in trouble, Lennie killed her, because she was yelling, and he became afraid, as a result, he was being kill by George, he got no choice, but to kill him by himself, or Lennie would be capture by Curley, and being lock in a cage, treat him like a dog. When we are reading a book, we could usually get the information that the author send to us, but which was not really mention in the story, to read a book more carefully the more things we could get.

Between the Line Questions

1. Why does Lennie tell George that he could just leave him alone if he want?”

Because George was saying something that hurt Lennie’s heart really hard, and he thought he was only fooling.

2. Do you think that George really car for Lennie? Why or why not?

Yes, he really care about him, even he always doing something wrong or worse, but he couldn’t just leave him alone, and go away, because he is the only friend Lennie got, and he has to look after him since Lennie’s aunt pass away.

3. What do you think about the feeling of Lennie when George saying that he want to go by himself if he could?

I think he was hurt really hard, because he always made troubles for George, and couldn’t live in a little peace when he was with him, he feel so sorry about that. When he tell George that he could go to that mountain by himself, and live there alone, he fell so helpless and lonely.