Curley met his wife at the Riverside Dance Palace.
Curley’s wife is a very lonely person. Her character is not even given a name. Sadly, Curley is very jealous and tries to keep her away from other people. Most of the company she has on the ranch is farmhands, and he doesn’t want her socializing with them in case she might cheat on him. They avoid her too, because they do not want trouble with Curley.
Curley is violent, crude, and grumpy. He is always looking for his wife to make sure she is not doing something she should not be, and she is always wandering around the ranch pretending to look for him just so that she can come in contact with people.
When Curley’s wife finds Lennie alone in the barn, with his dead puppy, she just really wants someone to talk to. She tells Lennie most of her life story.
“’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.… I never got that letter. …. So I married Curley. Met him out to the Riverside Dance Palace that same night.” (Ch. 5)
It does seem as if Curley’s wife wanted more out of life, but she found it difficult to get anywhere. She thought that the man she met was going to get her into movies, and he never wrote to her like he promised. She decided she might as well just get married, and she settled on Curley.
Unfortunately, things do not end well for Curley’s wife. She gets her neck broken because Lennie wanted to stroke her hair. He did not mean to kill her, but as with the puppy he just did not know his own strength. It was a tragic accident.
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