Comparing Lady Macbeth and Curley’s Wife Essay

‘Of Mice and Men’, written in 1937 by John Steinbeck, and ‘Macbeth’, written in 1606 by William Shakespeare, both portray women as linked to the downfall of male characters. Both play and novel were set and written at times where women did not have many rights. ‘Macbeth’ was first performed in 1606 which was a patriarchal society and the ‘Divine Right of Kings’ meant that people believed that kings were chosen by God to rule and so killing a king, or regicide, was considered to be the greatest sin that could be committed. I will be looking at Lady Macbeth who has a sinister control over her husband. ‘Of Mice and Men’ was written in the time of the Great Depression; by this point in history, women had started to receive some rights such as voting, but they were the first to lose their jobs when the Depression came and many had to become housewives once again. Curley’s wife represents the frustration of women in this era. This essay will focus on the similarities and differences between the two characters and how they are represented thought structure, language and themes. The audience first meets Lady Macbeth in Act 1 Scene 5. She is reading a letter from Macbeth explaining the events that just took place with the witches. This is followed by her soliloquy, so we hear her thoughts aloud. This indicates that Lady Macbeth will have power over the events in the play, since she begins plotting the murder of the king; this display of power is rare for a woman in the 17th century, which is further suggested by the fact that she would have been played by a man on a Shakespearean stage. Lady Macbeth during the play is important, since she is already the wife of a nobleman and later the king. After the reign of Queen Elizabeth, society was anxious about powerful women and would have been very anxious about Lady Macbeth since she begins to plot murder while reading the letter saying: â€Å"Yet do I fear thy / nature It is too full of the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way†. â€Å"nearest way† is a euphemism for murder. She shows boldn ess and is critical of her husband. Lady Macbeth and Curley’s wife both show disdain for their husbands. In Act 2 Scene 2, Lady Macbeth is manipulative towards her husband, as she complains to him for returning the daggers to the scene of the crime, by saying â€Å"My hands are of your colour, but I shame / to wear a heart so white†, ‘white’ is related to innocence or without sin. This relates to the context as during the Jacobean men are meant have bloody hearts from all the people they have killed and for a woman to call a man’s heart white, and for her to be shamed by it he must be less manly than her. The relationship between Curley and Curley’s wife is seen without trust throughout the development of the book. Curley’s wife does not wish to be under his masculine control; Curley’s wife says â€Å"think I like to stick in that house alla time?† The word ‘stick’ means to stay attached by adhesion, this shows how she is unable to be free or disobey her husbands in any way. It shows that she hates to be by herself, and shows Curley’s possessiveness and jealousy towards the other characters on the ranch about her reduces the things in which she is able to do. In the 1930s woman were often kept at home by their husbands as jobs were becoming more difficult to get and keep, as women just recently received the right to work in more masculine jobs and so this get them the least amount of rights to jobs when jobs became scarce. Lady Macbeth emotions and Macbeth physical status are linked throughout the play. In Act 1 we see Macbeth being promoted to thane at the end of his battle, this is the start of his kingdom, fortress and prison. Lady Macbeth on reading the letter sent for Macbeth increases in wickedness and this is the start of her kingdom, fortress and prison but with Lady Macbeth it is to guard or imprison her emotions or guilt. This doesn’t last long for the queen as her guard is down and her emotions escape her during her sleepwalking scene, as she says â€Å"out, damned spot!†, a ‘spot’ can be referred to a rounded mark stain made by a foreign matter, as mud, blood, paint, ink, etc. She is not referring to a physical spot but the leak of her emotions, the blood stained spot of King Duncan, this is also shoes Lady Macbeth’s more famine side which the audience expected of a female in the Jacobean patriarchal society. Macbeth’s fortress comes crumbling before him at the end of Scene 5 ending with his death, for the King to die is a mighty shock during the era where the divine right of kings meant the biggest sin that could be committed as the king is thought to be chosen by God. Curley and his wife on the other hand are quite the opposite. Curley’s wife’s decisions affect the stability of Curley position on the ranch. The Curley we met at the start is portrayed as the strongest character on the farm, he is also the ranch owner’s son and is the only one with a known wife. All these factors make-up the pillars that hold at the top of the pyramid. When Lennie breaks his hand he already becomes unstable and so starts being more strict with his wife such as making her stay at home. With his wife know going around the ranch with near see-through tops and baked up Barbie face, which for a woman in the early twentieth century his unrealistic as they are considered to be owned by their husbands. When she dies this is a very big deal for Curley as with only one pillar barely holding him up his pyramid is toppling down. His anger is shown at the very end of the play when Curley throws a tantrum says â€Å"That big son of a bitch done it. I know he done it.† Both females characters foreshadow important event in the texts. Foreshadowing is seen straight away when we meet Lady Macbeth when she speaks her soliloquy. During this soliloquy Lady Macbeth rants about her husband, when she mentions â€Å"Make thick my blood†, to thickened blood is also known as blood clot, Blood clot is known for being very painful, and so for her to want for her blood to clot, she must . Woman in the 17th century were considered to be non-violent. Later in Act 5 Scene 1 Lady Macbeth certifies her death as she opened herself unconsciously, in front of the doctor and nurse, and says â€Å"There’s a knocking at the door†. ‘Door’ is any gateway marking an entrance or exit from one place or state to another, in this scene the door relates to the doors of hell, as Lady Macbeth is feeling the weight of her sins on top of her. This foreshadowing is fulfilled when Lady Macbeth is said to of killed herself off-stage. In ‘Of Mice and Men’ foreshadowing is seen in chapter 2 when Curley’s wife introduced physically to the reader. The text describes her as â€Å"She had full, rouged lips†¦ Her fingernails were red†¦ like sausages†¦ red mules,.. of red ostrich feathers†. ‘Red’ is of the colour of fresh blood, and so her appearance shows her death in the near future due to her desperation to catch the attention of everyone on the farm. This is because many people felt powerless and frustrated during ‘the Great Depression’. In the entrance to the new characters, George and Lennie, the scene is described â€Å"Both men glanced up, for the rectangle of sunshine in the doorway was cut off†. The ‘sunshine’ is related to the sunlight of heaven, this again is predicting her death in the near future. In chapter 5 the novel mentions â€Å"A pigeon flew in through the open hay door and circled and flew out again†, the pigeon in French is a young dove which can be related to the heaven, ultimately indicating her death a second before we her doll like corpses. Her death is like her introduction as they both having similar with her red theme.†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦rouged cheeks and her reddened lips†¦Ã¢â‚¬  this proves that the foreshadowing at the start is related to her death at the end of the book. Curley’s wife shows control over Crooks in ‘Of Mice and Men’ yet women having such low respect during the Great Depression. The play is structured so that the importance of Lady Macbeth decreases during the play while Curley’s wife’s importance increases during the novel. Lady Macbeth is ashamed of her husband at the start of the play as Macbeth shows so much weakness towards her. This disappointment of hers is shown greatly during the killing of King Duncan in Act 2 Scene 2. This also shows her importance, as she complains to Macbeth by announcing â€Å"My hand are of your colour, but I shame / to wear a heart so white†, shame is a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behaviour. In context this is odd as during the Jacobean era women were expected to obey their husbands, but instead she is more masculine that her own husband. In Act 5 Scene 5, Seyton emotionlessly says †The queen, my lord, is dead† but we do not witness the death on-stage, this is to show that Lady Macbeth has lost her importance since the start of the play. On the other hand Curley’s wife is less important at the start of the novel as we hear her in a conversation between Candy and George, as Candy describes Curley’s wife as a â€Å"tart†. The word is an offensive term for a female prostitute showing that what she does is not what is wanted from a 1930s wife as it was sexist society and men were still dominant. At the end of the book Curley’s wife is killed but not off-stage thus showing an increase in her importance since the start, this is probably because she is direct cause of Lennie’s death compared to Lady Macbeth. Her increase in importance links to the fact that women started getting a lot of rights such as having the right to vote, as during the war women took over their husband’s jobs and when the husbands returned some realized that women could do more than be housewives. We witness Curley’s wife first performance of power over a male character in chapter 4, at Crooks’s harness room when she turns on him and says â€Å"Listen, Nigger†. The word ‘Nigger’ is a contemptuous term used to refer to a member of any dark-skinned people. By using this term to a black person shows that Curley’s wife has a little amount of power in this patriarchal also by Crooks’s after reaction of curling into a ball this also shows her power a only the week lower themselves to a higher power. During the 1930s a racial group called the Klu Klux Klan had power they disrespected black people and sometimes went as far as to kill them. In the same conversation with Crooks’s Curley’s wife says â€Å"I could get you strung upon a tree so easy it ain’t even funny†. ‘Strung upon a tree’ this is called lynching; lynching was first started in America by in the 18th century and was mostly stopped by 1920. Black people who went against white people in the 1930 still got hanged on a tree, this term shows the power in which Curley’s wife holds over black people, as well as mentioning this to a black person is very offensive as over thirty thousand negro’s died and shows the reason why Crook’s ‘reduced himself to nothing’. Both Lady Macbeth and Curley’s wife are the cause of the sorrow around them leading to both Lennie and Macbeth’s death. Lady Macbeth finally shows the sexist weakness of women during the Jacobean era by allowing for her emotions to leak out and dies off-stage showing her unimportance. Curley’s wife is throughout the novel shown as slutish and attention seeking and is finally killed by a man as she does not have the strength to withstand Lennie, showing her feminist side. Both authors portray their leads as weak and vulnerable even if they try to hide it.