Curley's wife has a destablizing influence in the life of the men on the ranch. She is the only woman there, she is by herself in a man's world, and she is the wife of the boss's son. She is young, pretty, lonely and flirtatious. She lacks good judgment or a realistic picture of life. She flirts with the ranch hands, such as Lennie, without realizing how dangerous that is.
Because she is bored and dissatisfied, she throws her weight around. For example, she threatens the stable hand, Crooks, with the idea that she will say he made advances towards her, humiliating him and forcing him to kowtow to her in a servile way. The men know too that Curley has a bad temper and is spoiling for a fight, so they realize they need to steer clear of his wife--but, with little else to do, she doesn't steer clear of them. This, of course, has fatal consequences for her.
She has no name other than "Curley's wife," showing that she is not entirely a real person to the men, but instead a role, the generic female they have to be wary of. She represents a sexual temptation that must be resisted by men who are living in too much poverty and uncertainty to marry and who tend to think of women as "tramps" because most of their encounters with them are through prostitutes.
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