He also, however, has outward confidence from being the boss's son: the deck is stacked in his favor, and he knows he can bully the ranch hands, who can't afford to fight back if they want to keep their jobs.

When Curley meets Lennie and George for the first time, he shows his arrogance or sense of superiority. He asks them questions, and when George answers for Lennie, who is upset by Curley, Curley responds arrogantly:

By Christ, he’s gotta talk when he’s spoke to. What the hell are you gettin’ into it for?

Curley shows his arrogance by insisting that Lennie's "gotta" answer when Curley speaks to him, as if Curley is a king. This is not a kind way to treat a new employee. Instead, Curley rubs his employees' inferiority into their faces by lording it over them.

Curley also responds angrily when he meets the two new ranch hands. After having hardly spoken to them:

His arms gradually bent at the elbows and his hands closed into fists. He stiffened and went into a slight crouch. His glance was at once calculating and pugnacious.

This shows that Curley is not only angry, but a person who looks for a fist fight. We learn a little bit later that he is a lightweight boxer, which is no doubt why he went into a crouch when he felt threatened by George and Lennie. Candy tells them:

He done quite a bit in the ring. He’s a lightweight, and he’s handy.

Candy also explains why he thinks Curley has a chip on his shoulder:

Curley’s like alot of little guys. He hates big guys. He’s alla time picking scraps with big guys. Kind of like he’s mad at ‘em because he ain’t a big guy.

George becomes worried that Curley is a mean bully who is going to cause trouble for Lennie. He warns Lennie repeatedly to stay away from him. George says of Curley: "I don’t like mean little guys.”

Candy also tells them that Curley just got married and that is making him worse than ever: it seems he wants to prove himself to his wife.

George says to Lennie a little later:

Look, Lennie! This here ain’t no setup. I’m scared. You gonna have trouble with that Curley guy. I seen that kind before. He was kinda feelin’ you out. He figures he’s got you scared and he’s gonna take a sock at you the first chance he gets.

We can tell from chapter two that Curley is a mean, arrogant bully with an inferiority complex who will probably make trouble for George and Lennie if he gets the chance.

One of the most telling elements that is revealed about Curley's wife in chapter 2 is her relationship to men. Curley's wife understands the effect she has on men. To a certain extent, it is indicated in the text that she encourages it. Steinbeck does not hesitate in describing Curley's wife as being cognizant of the effect she has on men:

She had full rouged lips and wide- spaced eyes, heavily made up.  Her fingernails were red.  Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages.  She wore a cotton house dress and red mules, on the insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers.

In the description of Curley's wife, it is clear that she carries herself with a particular effect on men. She wears a noticeable color in red and has made herself up with cosmetics.  This appearance is accentuated when George responds to her and she "put her hands behind her back and leaned against the door frame so that her body was thrown forward."   She understands how she is going to be perceived by the men and this is why her behavior is calculated to evoke a specific response.

In the way she speaks in Chapter 2, Curley's wife understands her role as the only woman on the ranch. When she says to George and Lennie, "Nobody can't blame a person for lookin'," it is a statement that seems to carry double meaning. She is looking for Curley, but she says it knowing that Lennie is watching, or looking, at her. This is another way in which Curley's wife understands the impact she has on men.

In both speech and behavior, Curley's wife understands the effect she has on men. She is deliberate and recognizes that her own perception rests in the perception that others have of her. Steinbeck includes this detail in chapter 2 to foreshadow what will come later on in the narrative regarding the dreams that she had for herself.  Her own identity, one whose dreams were rooted in 
"pitchers."  It is in this expectation and hope of being noticed that helps to provide explanation behind Curley's wife's behavior and speech in chapter 2.

In chapter two of Steinbeck's novella Of Mice and Men, the old swamper Candy describes the main characters on the ranch including Curley's wife. She comes up in the conversation between George and Candy after Curley comes into the bunkhouse looking for her. Candy describes her as pretty but also flirtatious and even possibly promiscuous. He says she's "got the eye," meaning she is often around the men on the ranch trying to talk to them. Candy uses the terms tart, tramp and floozy to refer to her.

A little later she comes into the bunkhouse looking for Curley. Ironically, the two always seem to be looking for each other but are never in the same scene together until chapter five when she is found dead. Her characterization is sexually charged. She is young but seductive in appearance:

She had full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages. She wore a cotton house dress and red mules, on the insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers. 

Curley's wife reveals that she always wanted to go to Hollywood and make it as a movie star. Once upon a time, a member of a traveling troupe passing through her hometown told Curley's wife that she might have a future in movies and that he would write to her from Hollywood. But Curley's wife never heard from him again; she thinks that her mother must have torn up any letters he sent her.

It was largely as a way of escaping such a stultifying home life that Curley's wife got married to a man she didn't love. As a result, she finds herself trapped in an environment from which there's no escape. Bored out of her mind and stuck in a loveless marriage that's going nowhere, Curley's wife feels the loss of her big chance at movie stardom most keenly.

Like just about everyone else in the story, then, Curley's wife has dreams, and very ambitious dreams they are too. But just like everyone else, her dreams will ultimately come to nothing. Though Curley's wife is a deeply unsympathetic character in many respects, the thwarting of her life's ambitions has a certain tragic quality to it. There's also a terrible sense of inevitability about it.

In chapter five Candy, Curley's wife, tells Lenny that she could have made something better of herself other than just being the wife of Curley who she says "ain't a nice fella." She continues to say that when she was 15 years old she met an actor from a travelling show who invited her to join the show, but her mother wouldn't let her. A while later she went with another man to a dance who told her that he could put her in the movies. "Says I was a natural." He promised to send her a letter, but she never received it.

Though one could say her story shows her to be naive, you get the feeling that she is too canny to share the story with anyone else but Lenny. She knows he can't fully understand the nuances of what she is telling him. As she says, "I ain't told this to nobody before."

The main thing that Curley's wife reveals about herself in chapter 5 is that she has dreams of becoming a movie star and is totally ignorant about acting or about the movie business. All she knows is that some man told her she was a "natural." She tells Lennie:

"Coulda been in the movies, an' had nice clothes--all them nice clothes like they wear. An' I coulda sat in them big hotels, an' had pitchers took of me. When they had them previews I coulda went to them, an' spoke in the radio, an' it wouldn'ta cost me a cent because I was in the pitcher. An' all them nice clothes like they wear. Because this guy says I was a natural."

This explains her behavior around the ranch workers. They think she is "jail bait" and a "tart," a promiscuous underage girl who could cause all kinds of trouble. She is really only trying out her charms and acting ability on the only audience that is available out here. It explains why she devotes so much attention to her makeup and her curls. Lennie doesn't understand what she is talking about. The only man on the ranch who understands her is Slim. He knows she is just a little girl with grandiose delusions, and he pretends to be impressed by her because he is a kind-hearted man and really feels sorry for her. He knows she hasn't a chance in the world of becoming a movie star, and he pities the poor kid for being married to a man like Curley.

Unfortunately, Curley's wife fails to realize that her provocative behavior will lead to her death. The other men know better than to get involved with her. They shun her.  But Lennie does not have any self-control, and he completely forgets about George's earlier warning to stay away from this girl.

"Listen to me, you crazy bastard," he said fiercely. "Don't you even take a look at that bitch. I don't care what she says and what she does. I seen 'em poison before, but I never seen no piece of jail bait worse than her. You leave her be."

She approaches Lennie in the barn because he is the only man she can talk to. She also reveals to Lennie that she dislikes her husband and that she feels lonely most of the time. Lennie probably understands little, if anything, of what she is talking about. But he has found her attractive ever since he first saw her in the bunkhouse.

Lennie still stared at the doorway where she had been. "Gosh, she was purty." He smiled admiringly.

The alert reader should realize that this foreshadows serious future trouble.

Curley and his wife, though newlyweds, don't get along well, and that is because they share some of the same negative characteristics. Curley's wife, who is never named, is a self-absorbed teenage bride, while Curley himself is an insecure, self-absorbed, arrested teenager in an adult body.

While Curley's wife is the more sympathetic of the two, they both share a remarkable lack of empathy. Both find it impossible to put themselves into other people's shoes. This means that both behave cruelly.

For example, Curley sees only that Lennie is bigger than he is and therefore regards him as a threat and enemy. He finds it impossible to see Lennie as himself: a gentle, mentally disabled giant who only wants to survive in the world. Likewise, when Crooks tries to keep her out of his room, Curley's wife can't see him as a frightened, lonely Black man trying to hang onto what little dignity he has. Instead, she perceives him in terms of her own insecurities: as a threat who she cruelly beats back and humiliates by threatening him with a lynching. Like Curley, she uses her power in society to control other people, not thinking for a moment about how this is alienating them.

Curley tries to alleviate his inner feelings of insecurity and worthlessness by flaunting his outward power on the ranch, but this only makes him seem more contemptible to the men he wants to impress. Likewise, Curley's wife flaunts makeup, nail polish, and sexy clothing to try to feel better about herself, but she invites contempt this way, and inwardly, she too feels worthless.

Curley and his wife have a very turbulent relationship in Of Mice and Men.

Curley is possessive regarding his wife.  He shows this in chapter 2, when he is repeatedly asking if anyone knows where his wife is.  He suspects many of the ranch hands when it comes to his wife, including Slim.  When talking to George, Whit suggests there might be a sense of turbulence between both husband and wife.  He speaks about how Curley is quite anxious about his wife, saying that Curley has "yella- jackets in his drawers."  At the same time, we can presume that Curley does not treat his wife well when he is with her.  When she is talking to Lennie, she tells him that Curley's "not a nice fella."  The way she says it reflects personal knowledge about what he is capable of doing.  It is evident there is not much in way of happiness between them.

Steinbeck does not depict the couple in anything resembling a healthy relationship.  Whit perceptively says that both of them are akin to two ships passing in the night:  "He spends half his time lookin’ for her, and the rest of the time she’s lookin’ for him.”  Both of them are not shown as being emotionally settled with one another.  This reflects how Curley and his wife do not find much in way of happiness in their relationship.

I think that Curley's wife does deserve some sympathy. She obviously had no idea what she was getting into when she married Curley. (Perhaps she never thought about the move.) She lives on the ranch with no women around and because Curley is so jealous, she is very lonely because he does not want any of the men talking to her.

I don't think she is terribly bright—or perhaps she is simply not realistic. She has dreams of being a star and here she is living on a farm in the middle of the Great Depression where everyone in the country is suffering, including the film industry. She should be more realistic and thankful that she has a home. Certainly other women have faced a similar situation of living on a farm with only farmhands around, etc. Perhaps my only expectation of Curley's wife is that she might have found other more constructive ways to fill her time other than hanging around the men; but instead of embracing her life as it is, she dreams of what she wants it to be, and living on the farm has no place in that dream.

One interpretation of her in Steinbeck's novel of the alienated and displaced man is that she is an Eve, a temptress, who disrupts the important fraternity of men, and is, therefore, unworthy of any sympathy.  In Chapter 2, when George notices her standing in the doorway of the bunkhouse she has "rouged lips" with red fingernails and red shoes with "red ostrich feathers."  She leans against the doorway "so that her body was thrown forward" and smiles "archly and twitched her body."  Her pretext of looking for Curley is false; Slim tells her that he has seen her husband going toward their house.  After she leaves, Lennie remarks, "She's purty," and George scolds,

"Listen to me,....Don't you even take a look at that bitch.  I don't care what she says and what she does.  I seen 'em poison before, but I never see not piece of jail bait worse than her.  You leave her be."

That Curley's wife does not love her husband and is merely concerned with her own pleasure and welfare is revealed in her conversation with Lennie in Chapter 5 in which she reveals that she married Curley to get away from the little town in which she lived:

Well, I wasn't gonna stay no place where I couldn't get nowhere or make something of myself, an' where they stole your letters....So I married Curley.  Met him out to the Riverside Dance Palace that same night....Well, I ain't told this to nobody before...I don' like Curley...

So, Curley's wife deserves little sympathy, although her death is tragic.  For, in Steinbeck's naturalistic world, the indifference of the universe is evident, just as it is in Robert Burns's poem from which the novella's title comes.  The best laid plans of Curley's wife and those of George and Lennie all go askew

And leave us nothing but grief and pain

For promised joy. 

Curley's wife deserves sympathy for her injust death and that's about it, in my opinion. She brings on her own trouble throughout the majority of the text. I guess sympathy could come into play as we see that she does what she does because she has no opportunity for friends now that she married Curley. But, that was a consequence borne of her own choice.

Her death was not fair, it served a literary purpose so it could drive home the point about Lennie's underassessed condition, which we further look at as a representation for how we don't cut people much slack for being different or weaker than us. She did nothing to Lennie to earn the death, and after a person is dead, sympathy isn't even worth it because nothing can be done.

I suppose that would depend on the reader, but I felt both sympathy and frustration with her.  She is a very lonely person, married to Curley, who sure isn't the best husband in history.  She is the only woman on the entire ranch, emphasized by Steinbeck in that he doesn't even give her a name, just "Curley's Wife", and she pretty much has no way to leave the ranch even for recreation or time with friends, much less permanently as she would like.  So she is stuck with a jealous, angry husband, and a farm full of men who ignore her.  Not a fun time.

On the other hand, to compensate for being alone most of the time, she flirts with almost any man within range, and this causes all sorts of trouble for Lennie and Slim and George, all characters we like in the book and root for.  So while we sympathize with the wife, we also wish she would just go away and leave our heroes alone.

Contrary to what the overall popular definition of the word "tart" means, in slang terminology, the word "tart" is described as:

A nubile young temptress, who dresses teasingly and provocatively.

In the first part of Of Mice and Menwe encounter what the general consensus is about Curley's wife when she is described in the following way:

I seen her give Slim the eye. Slim’s a jerkline skinner. Hell of a nice fella.
Slim don’t need to wear no high-heeled boots on a grain team. I seen her give
Slim the eye. Curley never seen it. An’ I seen her give Carlson the eye.
George pretended a lack of interest. Looks like we was gonna have fun.
The swamper stood up from his box. “Know what I think?” George did not
answer. “Well, I think Curley’s married . . . . a tart.”

So, from the definition first given, we could agree that, in the outside, Curley's wife would seemingly embody the definition of a young provocateur. Furthermore, we get additional information about her appearance and this seems to safeguard the general consensus even more strongly:

She had full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up.  Her fingernails were red.  Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages.  She wore a cotton house dress and red mules, on the insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers.

From this description alone, the term "tart" comfortably fits the character of Curley's wife. However, there is something else to take into consideration before jumping into conclusions. Curley's wife knew nothing better than to be provocative. From the little information that we know, she has always had a heart for the stage and her dream is to, one day, be some sort of artist. Perhaps her daily routine in dress and make up is a way for her to vicariously pretend that she is already what she wishes to be. Certainly she does not dress up for Curley, since she does not like him. Perhaps the attention that she gets from the farm hands is the attention she would have wanted to get from an audience.

Concisely, from a physical perspective, Curley's wife would be considered a tart. However, if we had known her better, we would have created a different opinion of her.

In Steinbeck's novella Of Mice and Men, both Crooks and Curley's wife are marginalized.

Much of the time, Crooks is alluded to simply as the "stable buck" in the narrative. Candy initially speaks about him in an objectified manner as he tells George how the boss has reacted to their not having reported to work in the morning:

"He was sure burned when you wasn't here this morning. Come right in when we was eatin' breakfast and says, 'Where the hell's them new men?' An' he give the stable buck hell, too."

When George asks Candy about his last sentence, Candy explains that the "buck's a n****r. . .The boss gives him hell when he's mad." So, Crooks is a verbal whipping boy.

Additionally, he is isolated from the other ranch hands as he is made to live in the barn, apart from the others in the bunkhouse. So, he occupies himself with reading when he is not working because he is also not allowed to play horseshoes or cards with the other men. When the men go into town to drink and engage in other activities, Crooks never goes then, either.

Curley's wife, too, is prevented from interacting with others on the ranch. Just like Crooks, she is objectified; she has no other name but that of being the genitive of Curley, her husband. When she first appears in the narrative, she stands in the doorway of the bunkhouse in a seductive pose, the only position which gives her any attention. She can only use her womanhood to gain any attention, and so she becomes an Eve to tempt the men and manipulate them. However, she duplicates Curley's mistake of failing to comprehend how uncontrollable is the fear and irrationality of Lennie. 

Both Crooks and Curley's wife play unique roles in the society of Steinbeck's novella. Crooks embodies the isolation, loneliness, and marginalization of many during the Great Depression while Curley's wife is a vehicle by which Steinbeck contrasts the way that various men act. Moreover, she acts as a disruptive force in the fraternity of men.

Curley's wife first asks about her husband. Her real reason for visiting the bunkhouse is that she wants someone to talk to. The men never welcome her into their group. When she visits Crook's room she says,“I ain’t giving you no trouble. Think I don’t like to talk to somebody ever’ once in a while? Think I like to stick in that house alla time?” She admits she doesn't like her husband who “Spends all his time sayin’ what he’s gonna do to guys he don’t like, and he don’t like nobody.” Curley's wife is a lonely figure who no one will really talk to except Lennie. And that turns out to be a fatal mistake.

Differences:

Obviously, she is female, he is male. He is black, she is white. Although these are simplistic, they are worth noting because these are dramatic differences for the 1930s era. Today, men and women cross gender lines in terms of stereotypical roles and expectations. The same is true culturally for blacks and whites. Often, stereotypical assumptions can no longer be assumed because blacks and whites has assimilated into each others' previously singular cultural norms.

Curley's wife is put on a sort of spotlight and given value because she is the woman of Curley's affection and worth. She is given the attention of the men because they dare not cross paths with her for fear that they will be accused of flirting with her. She is treaated like an object to be possessed.

Crooks on the other hand has worth and value for other reasons and at least has a name. Crooks is identified by his role on the farm. For him, we see his permanent status in the items he has gathered over time. He has his own room which could further give him importance, but he views it as a way he is separated from the others.

Similarities:

Both Crooks and Curley's wife are intended to be permanent residents on the ranch. This is different than many of the other characters who travel from ranch to ranch for work. Both are outside the majority of the characters for one reason or another. Both are extremely lonely because of their differences from the rest of the group. They both long for friendship, but alas, no one will have them. They both get the attention of Lennie, a central character who demonstrates more humanity than the rest of the characters. This attention serves to fulfill their longings momentarily.

The first indication that Curley’s wife is treated with disrespect is that she is never given a name. She is simply known as “Curley’s wife.” The contempt with which the ranch hands view her is due to the fact that she is desperately seeking attention, perhaps companionship at some level. Curley seems to be inadequate. They never seem to be in the same room at the same time. Throughout the novel they are constantly seeking each other. Yet Curley does not trust her around men, perhaps with good reason. The ranch hands view her as a “tramp,” seeking to be unfaithful to Curley. She tells Candy and Lennie that she wanted to be an actress, but her mother thought she was too young. Since then, she has been looking for her identity. Perhaps she does not want what the men think she wants. Yet they view her as trouble looking for an opportunity. When she comes around, they almost immediately push her aside to get rid of her. She is the only female in the novel in a masculine environment. The men may not be so much misogynists as self-defensive. They view women only as sexual objects (such as the prostitutes in the brothel in town), and thus Curley’s wife fits in that category. There is no attempt to reveal her as a fully developed character, worthy of respect or even understanding.

The manner in which Curley's wife exerts control over the men in John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men is by using her studied mannerisms in a way that it would entice the men to, at least, pay attention to her.Furthermore, she uses her gender, which at the time is meant to be weak and feeble, to make the men feel obligated to be condescending and somewhat respectful of her in her presence (certainly not when she is not there). Moreover, she uses her situation as the boss's wife as a tool of power, as she knows that the men fear to lose their jobs. Therefore, we can agree that Curley's wife combines femininity, sex appeal, and her husband's power as tools to secure and maintain the attention of the field hands.

Curley's wife is a woman who marries too young to a man who disappoints her greatly. As a younger woman, she still has hopes and dreams. Her particular dreams have to do with being in the limelight as a showgirl. We know that she actually comes close, at some point in her life, to achieve this dream. However, she chooses to marry and her life changes from being a potential showgirl to being a Rancher's wife.

She is obviously still holding on to her dreams, as we witness her actions in the novel, because she is always overdressed and heavily made-up at all times. She also develops a particular way of behaving among the men that clearly points to her need to be looked at, and admired. She is sensual and uses her body to get attention.

Although she is aware that her presence among the field hands is as inappropriate as it is unnecessary, he still allows herself to wander about the men's barracks to make the situation awkward enough for the men to have no choice but to listen to her and admit her in their presence.

The men, being as uneducated and unsophisticated as they are, cannot bring themselves to shun her directly because she is not only a woman, but also the wife of the boss. Hence, they really are trapped by her with no way out.

Concisely, Curley's wife seeks attention and actively goes for it by prepping herself enough to be looked at, by acting sensually enough to be heard, and by causing enough tension in the air to remind the men that she holds a lot of power over them. It is a combination of feminine traits, sexual attraction, and power that keeps her close enough to the men to be personally satisfied.

Curley's wife can flirt somewhat openly (as long as Curley is not around) with the other ranchers. Since she is Curley's wife, who is the son of the boss, she can pretty well do what she wants. If any of the ranchers are unhappy with her behavior, she only has to tell Curley and he will have his father fire them. Curley's wife flirts/interacts with the other workers partly out of loneliness but also because she knows she can do so with no consequences. Being the wife of the son of the boss, Curley's wife feels free to do whatever she pleases. This is most apparent in Chapter 4 when she warns Crooks that she can have him hanged if he challenges her in any way: "I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain't even funny." Candy replies that he would take Crooks' side. Curley's wife says nobody would listen to him (or Crooks or Lennie). Candy relents. After Curley's wife leaves, Crooks admits that if it was to be his word against Curley's wife, she would win every time: 

"You guys comin' in an' settin' made me forget. What she says is true." 

Curley's wife has even more power over Crooks because he was separated from the other men, essentially treated as a second class person/worker. In general, Curley's wife has the power to toy with the other workers as long as Curley is not around. She has only to tell Curley or his father to have a worker fired. 

The fact that Curley's wife does not have a name indicates that she is marginalized and seen as a fringe character, someone not worthy of acknowledgement. She belongs to someone and cannot claim ownership of herself. The circumstances in which she lives does not allow her to do so. She is wholly dependent on Curley to provide for her.

From the outset, the men's remarks and their perception of her mark her as a victim of prejudice. The men, almost without exception, seem to regard her with a combination of suspicion, fear, and resentment. Their attitude exposes a blatant bias towards her, when they, in fact, have no real reason to hold such views. Their approach, one can surmise, is more an expression of their dislike and resentment for Curley which they project onto her. The men hate Curley's arrogance and since she is, unfortunately, attached to him, she also becomes a victim of their disdain.

When George and Lennie first hear about her from Candy, his remarks are not positive at all. He tells them:

"Well, that glove's fulla vaseline."
"Vaseline? What the hell for?"
"Well, I tell ya what—Curley says he's keepin' that hand soft for his wife." 

This clearly shows that Curley sees his wife more as an object for pleasure than a loving partner. The fact that Candy speaks about it with such relish indicates that he, too, has no qualms about this view. It is George, ironically, who sees the whole idea as dirty. Candy tells them that she is 'purty' but that she has 'got the eye,' suggesting that she is a flirt. He states that he has seen her flirt with both Slim and Carlson.

George, who doesn't know Curley's wife, immediately concludes that she is a 'tart.' His statement has no foundation and is only based on what he has just heard. This indicates a clear bias. He has already formed a negative perception of someone he doesn't know and this informs his attitude toward her throughout the novel. 

In their encounter with Curley's wife later, George is brusque and dismissive. After she leaves, he is sarcastic and suggests that Curley has his work cut out for him: managing her. He also intimates that she is a gold digger and would clear out for twenty bucks. This approach emphasizes George's prejudice and he further accentuates this opinion when he tells Lennie, who clearly admires her,

"Listen to me, you crazy bastard," he said fiercely. "Don't you even take a look at that bitch. I don't care what she says and what she does. I seen 'em poison before, but I never seen no piece of jail bait worse than her. You leave her be." 

It becomes evident later that Curley's wife is a victim of his possessiveness. He is continuously looking for her and suspects Slim of having an inappropriate relationship with her. This indicates that he doesn't trust her and, therefore, limits her freedom. She is trapped. It is also apparent that her attempts at interaction stem from her loneliness. She has no one to talk to and confide in. The fact that she dresses up and wears make-up are evidence of the fact that she needs to feel appreciated, something that she does not get from her inconsiderate husband. She obviously likes being looked at.

Her confrontation with the men in Crooks' room later is an expression of her exasperation and when she does go on a power trip by threatening the men, she is reacting to their rejection. In this instance, she uses the little power she has, her race and the fact that she is the wife of the boss's son.

It is tragically ironic that when she does find someone to listen to her in Lennie, who in his own way allows her to vent her frustration and discuss her dreams, it culminates in her death. Further irony lies in the fact that her loneliness and frustration are symbolic of what the ranch hands are experiencing themselves. They do not form any lasting relationships and dream of something better. She, in essence, becomes the object on which they can vent their own frustration for the misery they are going through and that, ultimately, is what also makes her a victim.   

Crooks and Curley's wife are treated as outcasts, and thus experience terrible loneliness in John Steinbeck's novella Of Mice and Men. Crooks is the stable buck on the ranch. He is a black man on an all-white ranch in the 1930s, so he is the victim of both segregation and racism. Curley's wife is the only woman on a ranch full of men. She is very young and pretty and quite out of place.

Crooks is first described in chapter two by the old swamper, Candy. Because he's black, Crooks has his own room in the barn. Steinbeck uses the words "proud" and "aloof" to portray Crooks. He may be aloof because he senses the prejudice of the some of the men. He isn't often allowed in the bunkhouse where the white workers live. Candy relates the story of the time Crooks got to come into the bunkhouse on a special occasion. Crooks ended up fighting one of the workers, presumably over a race issue. Candy describes the fight:

"They let the nigger come in that night. Little skinner name of Smitty took after the nigger. Done pretty good, too. The guys wouldn't let him use his feet, so the nigger got him. If he coulda used his feet, Smitty says he woulda killed the nigger. The guys said on account of the nigger's got a crooked back, Smitty can't use his feet.

John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men focuses on George Milton and Lennie Small, a pair of migrant workers who recently come to work on a ranch. Curley is the son of the owner, and he's recently married to his wife. Curley is a very jealous man and doesn't take kindly to other men looking at or speaking to his wife.

Curley's wife is a lonely woman who doesn't care for her husband and isn't cared for by him, either. She makes excuses throughout the novel to spend time with the ranch hands, likely to curb her loneliness. George interprets her time searching for Curley as an attempt to tease the men and calls her a "tart." She doesn't mind when Curley finds out she has been flirting with the men, because it makes him jealous and in turn, he pays her attention.

At one point, when looking for Curley, she runs into George and clearly begins to flirt with him.

"If he ain't, I guess I better look some place else," she said playfully . . . She smiled archly and twitched her body.

She describes her distaste for Curley during a conversation with Lennie after he explains his bruises.

O.K. Machine. I'll talk to you later. I like machines . . . I'm glad you bust up Curley a little bit. He got it comin; to him. Sometimes I'd like to bust him myself.

In my opinion, it's an excuse on her part to get out of the house and see the guys in the bunkhouse.  It's always her excuse for coming in, then she stays and continues the conversation.  She's flirty, bored, and completely disappointed in her married life, compared to what she once expected.

You could also say that she is checking to see where he is not, as opposed to where he is, so that she can avoid him.  The book continually has her character talking about how her and Curley don't get along, get in fights, and generally dislike each other.

For quotes consider the time she is slow to leave the bunkhouse where she first sizes up George and Lennie.  Also, towards the end of the book, near her death, she has a whole conversation with Lennie about how "cool it is here in the barn".  She is clearly a very lonely person.

The chapter in which Curley's wife is killed by Lennie contains most of the information needed to explain why the girl is responsible for her own death. 

In the first place, she reveals why she has been acting so provocative around all the men on the ranch. They think she is sexually promiscuous and therefore dangerous because of her youth and her jealous husband. But she is not interested in sex and may very well still be a virgin. She is acting provocative because she is "movie crazy" and has dreams of becoming a movie star. She is trying out makeup, hair styles, clothes, and body language to see what sort of effect she can produce on men. They are just an audience, as far as she is concerned. She knows she has to be sexy if she is going to be a Hollywood movie star like Jean Harlow. She tells Lennie:

"Coulda been in the movies, an' had nice clothes--all them nice clothes like they wear. An' I coulda sat in them big hotels, an' had pitchers took of me. When they had them previews I coulda went to them, an' spoke in the radio, an' it wouldn'ta cost me a cent because I was in the pitcher. An' all them nice clothes like they wear. Because this guy says I was a natural."

In the second place, the girl is obviously very young, very inexperienced, and very naive. Otherwise she would never have stayed in the barn with Lennie and would certainly never have moved closer to him and invited him to feel her curly hair. She is too young to appeal to most of the men on the ranch, and too dangerous for them to want to have any intimacy with her. But Lennie is different, of course. He has a child's mind, but he is sexually mature and easily aroused without understanding his own impulses. Curley's wife should have had sense enough to understand what was happening to this retarded giant and tried to distract him somehow, so that she could get out of his grasp without struggling. Instead, she struggles and raises her voice. Men are playing horseshoes right outside the barn. Lennie becomes panicked. 

"Please don't," he begged. "Oh! Please don't do that. George'll be mad."

She is so naive she doesn't realize that Lennie is sexually aroused. She is mainly concerned about keeping her little curls from being spoiled after spending so much time making them with a curling iron.

"Look out, now, you'll muss it." And then she cried angrily, "You stop it now, you'll mess it all up." She jerked her head sideways, and Lennie's fingers closed on her hair and hung on. "Let go," she cried. "You let go!"

She doesn't understand what is happening, and neither does Lennie. But the reader should understand that this is becoming a very dangerous situation, especially since George isn't around to separate them, as he was when Lennie got into a similar situation with a girl in Weed.

Curley's wife wants to be admired for her looks and sex-appeal. She invites Lennie to feel her soft hair because she considers it one of her best features. This is obviously a bad mistake. She brings about her own death because she is too young to realize that she can actually be sexually arousing and not merely look sexy on a movie screen. She does not understand the difference between fantasy and reality.

In John Steinbeck's novel "Of Mice and Men" the prevalent motif is the fraternity of men.  And, as the only woman in this novella, Curley's wife is presented as more of a threat to this fraternity than anything else.  The earlier allusion to a woman who got Lennie in trouble indicates, also, that women are the cause of conflict.

When Curley's wife comes around the ranch house, she is flirtatious.  The old swamper, Candy, tells George she is "purty," but

'Well--she got the eye....I seen her give Slim the eye...an' I seen her give Carlson the eye....Well, I think Curley's married...a tart.'

When she comes by the ranch house one day the men see

A girl standig there looking in.  She had full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up.  Her fingernails were red.  Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages.  She wore a cotton house dress and red mules, on the insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers....Her voice ha a nasal, brittle quality.

As she "smiled archly and twitcher her body," there is no doubt in George's mind that she intends to be noticed as an attractive and seductive woman.  George calls her "a tramp."  Later, when she talks to the men, she tells them she is lonely.  She also indicates that she enjoys the fact that Lennie hurt Curley's hand.  Angered that the men lie about what has happened, she says contemptuously,

Awright, cover 'im up if ya wanta.  Whatta I care?  ....Whatta ya think I am, a kid?  I tell ya I could of went with shows.  Not jus' one, neither.  An'a guy tol' me he could put me in pitchers...

Clearly, Curley's wife is a shallow woman who is attractive.  But, she met Curley in some roadhouse and left home shortyly after meeting him.  So, her only ambition was to leave her tedious little town and find romance.  Unfortunately, Curley has disappointed her.

Curley's wife has quite a sordid reputation. She's regarded by other characters in the story as being what used to be called a woman of low morals. They call her all kinds of unpleasant names such as "jailbait" and "tart." At the very least, she's possessed with an exceptionally strong, overpowering sexuality; and she knows this, using her attractiveness to get men to do what she wants. At various points in the story, she proves herself to be a liar--a mean, cunning manipulator, someone not to be trusted.

And in the case of Curley's wife, sex goes hand in hand with power. As wife of the boss' son she enjoys a position of authority on the ranch, which she bolsters with her raunchy demeanor. She abuses her power by threatening to have Crooks, the only African-African on the ranch, lynched, a way of putting him "in his place." Because she has such a dire reputation, Curley's wife clings to her racial privilege as the only thing that can still command respect.

But like just about everyone else in the story, Curley's wife has dreams of a better life away from the ranch. She dreams of movie stardom, something she could realistically achieve with her incredible good looks and charm. Although this makes Curley's wife somewhat a much more rounded character, more human, it doesn't detract from a sordid reputation that appears richly deserved.

In the novel Of Mice and Men, Curley's wife does not relate well to the themes in the novel. She does not desire the lonely life she lives. She does not enjoy the isolation. She has always desired the more exciting life. She dreams of acting. She dwells on the past when she was observed by some who thought she could make it acting:

But she is pathetically lonely and once had dreams of being a movie star.

The ranch hands are gone all day working. They play games at night. Curley's wife feels left out. She obviously desires companionship. She has no interaction with society.

She lives out on the ranch, away from women her age. She is all alone on the ranch. She feels alienated from society. She has no one to confide in. She is basically without a friend.

For this reason, she reaches out to the field hands. She has no choice but to talk with Lennie. She uses him to get the attention she is so desperate for. Because she played with Lennie's emotions, she winds up with a broken neck. It was an accident.

Steinbeck was strongly suggesting that George was going to have to do something with Lennie because Lennie's interest in petting soft little animals was evolving into a sexual interest in little girls. Lennie doesn't understand his own impulses. He attacked a girl in broad daylight on the main street of the small town of Weed. He told George he only wanted to feel the material in her red dress. But Lennie lies to George all the time, and George, who wasn't present when the incident started, has only Lennie's word for what happened. If Lennie only wanted to feel the girl's dress--which was bad enough!--then why wouldn't he let go even when George was beating him over the head with a fence picket? 

Lennie does something similar with Curley's wife in the barn. He starts feeling her hair with her permission, but then he won't let go and she starts screaming and he ends up killing her. This looks like a case of murder in connection with attempted rape and makes George recall the Weed incident.

"I should have knew," George said hopelessly. "I guess maybe way back in my head I did."

What should George have known? He should have known that Lennie was a potential serial rapist and killer of underage girls. Why didn't Steinbeck make this more explicit? Because in the 1930s it would have been impossible to get such things printed. Steinbeck wanted Lennie to kill a girl at the ranch, and he wanted her to be as young as was logically possible. Curley's wife was only fifteen or sixteen. She tells Lennie she wanted to run a way with a man when she was fifteen and she was hanging around a dance hall in Salinas. She married Curley right after that.

Steinbeck portrays Curley's wife as a threat because he wanted a very young girl for Lennie's victim. He wanted Lennie to kill her so that George would end up killing him. He wanted George to kill Lennie to create a "shotgun ending" for the novel. He wanted the novel to end quickly because he intended to convert it into a play which would appear in New York in 1937, the same year the book was released. The play could not be longer than about an hour and a half, with perhaps one intermission. So the book, which Steinbeck called "a playable novel," had to be short. It reads like a treatment for the play. The dialogue is all contained in the novel, and the exposition is all contained in the dialogue; so it would be easy to convert it to a script for a stage play. The book is about migrant workers laboring in the fields, but there are no scenes of men working in fields or doing anything outdoors. Even when they pitch horseshoes the narrative only describes the sounds of horseshoes hitting the metal stakes. Nearly everything takes place in a bunkhouse or in the barn, where Crooks' little room is adjoining. It is intended for a low-budget production in New York. The scenes by the riverside campsite could be represented on a bare stage.

Lennie's wife is a threat because she is "jailbait," that is, she is underage and could get a man sent to prison for statutory rape. And she is a threat because she acts sexy and flirtatious. The men misunderstand her. She wants to be a movie star and is only trying out her charms on these workmen, the only audience available. The fact that she is so young explains why she doesn't know better than to get too friendly with Lennie and invite him to feel her hair. If she were more mature she might have handled the situation diplomatically. Instead of screaming, she might have spoken gently and distracted him. There seems little doubt that he would have ended up trying to rape her if she hadn't started struggling and screaming. 

But she was doomed from the start, because Stainbeck, the creator of all these characters, wanted Lennie to kill her, so that George would kill Lennie, so that the book, which is obviously very skimpy, could be converted immediately into a script for a stage play which would only run for perhaps an hour and a half. 

Steinbeck never specifies the age of the "girl" in Weed, but there is reason to believe that she was very young. (Someone has commented that a red dress might have symbolized that she was a loose woman. It could also suggest that she was just a little girl.) When George is berating Lennie about the incident that almost got them both killed by an angry mob: 

He took on the elaborate mananer of little girls when they are mimicking one another. "Jus' wanted to feel that girl's dress--jus' wanted to pet it like it was a mouse-- Well, how the hell did she know you jus' wanted to feel her dress? She jerks back and you hold on like it was a mouse...."

Twice George equates the dress with a mouse, seeming to show that Lennie is graduating from little animals to little girls. Why would George take on "the elaborate manner of little girls when they are mimicking one another" unless there was a little girl involved? Lennie was not attracted to the dress. He was lying about that. He was attracted to the girl, and he might have intended to tear the dress right off her. He has a child's mind but a grown man's sexual impulses. Steinbeck made Curley's wife as young as he logically could if she were going to be there because she was married.  Lennie is attracted to young girls because of his child's mind. He probably wouldn't be attracted to grown women. 

Some readers may reject this interpretation because they like Lennie and feel sorry for him. But they shouldn't feel too sorry for him. They ought to feel sorry for the little girls he might have attacked and murdered in the future if George had helped him escape from Curley's lynch mob.

Two characters isolated by their singleness, Curley's wife and Crooks are on the fringes of the male society of Of Mice and Men. For them, there is no fraternity, no sharing of work or enjoyments or dreams. While Curley's wife seeks attention by flashing her red fingernails and arching and twisting her body before the men, Crooks retreats into his books from the attention he knows he will never receive, for his barrier of race is greater than any barrier that keeps Candy's wife from socialization. The depth of this barrier is exemplfied in the scene in which he tries to prohibit Curley's wife from entering his room.  For, she turns to him scornfully,

"You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?"

and Crooks retreats upon his bunk "and drew into himself." After Curley's wife leaves, Crooks tells the men that perhaps the should leave as he does not want them in his room any more.  He tells Candy to "forget his idea of working there":

..."Well, jus' forget it.   I didn't mean it. Jus' foolin'. I wouldn'want to go on placec like it.

Forlornly Crooks sits on his bench and looks at the door for a moment.  Then, he defeatedly reaches for the liniment bottle with the knowledge that he will always be part of a race that is apart from the others.

Crooks and Curley's wife occupy very different social stations in the novel. Crooks is the African-American stable hand who lives on the lowest social rung at the ranch. He has the least power and respect, even among the hired ranch hands. He is old and physically broken. Curley's wife, in contrast, is white, young, and beautiful. As Curley's wife, she represents the ownership interests of the ranch. She does not have to work.

Crooks and Curley's wife, however, have some significant similarities. Both of them are isolated and lonely. Because of racial prejudices, Crooks is not allowed to live in the bunkhouse with the other hands and is not allowed to come out of his quarters in the harness room to join them except at Christmas. Curley's wife has no one on the ranch, except her cruel and controlling husband, to keep her company. She lives her days alone, cut off from human contact, with nothing to do. Because she is a woman, she is out-of-place in the man's world of the ranch, and because of her husband's jealousy, she is supposed to stay away from the men altogether.

I had to cut down the original question text, as there were multiple questions present.  They are all real interesting and I encourage you to repost them separately.  In my mind, I think that Lennie and Curley's wife being along at the start of Chapter 5 is significant because it brings together two fairly sad creatures in one instant.  Lennie's hopes of a life where he can "tend the rabbits" and be surrounding with creature that allow him to enjoy a state of being in the world are set against Curley's wife's dream of being in "pitchers" and being someone of importance and significance.  In this particular instant, the striking similarity of their dreams and their own potential for loneliness because of their dreams' denial is brought out in full force.  At the same time, the differences between them is also present in that Lennie does not possess bitterness about the deferral of his dreams.  Perhaps, this is because he lacks the capacity for it.  Yet, Curley's wife is bitter and she is distraught that her own dreams were not recognized.  I think that another significant difference that is evoked in chapter 5 is how Curley's wife lives her life with the consciousness of her dreams being negated, while Lennie possesses the childhood innocence that at some point, in some way, his dreams can be fulfilled.  The moment where both of them interact through touch is one where neither one understands the vulnerability of the other, and where Steinbeck might be asserting that the cost of the denial of our dreams could be our ability to understand another person's own pain when they experience what we have.

Steinbeck planned to have Lennie commit a murder at the ranch where he and George were going to be working. He wanted the victim to be a female, of course. He wanted her to be somewhat sympathetic but also somewhat unsympathetic. The main sympathy in the novelette had to be directed towards George and Lennie, since this is their story. If he made the girl too sympathetic, that would make Lennie seem more like a monster, and the reader would feel no pity either for Lennie or for George who thought he had to shoot him. If Steinbeck made the girl too unsympathetic, that would make Lennie's crime seem less terrible, and hence the reader would perhaps feel too much pity for Lennie and would not sympathize with George when he shoots him.

Steinbeck makes Curley's wife unsympathetic when she threatens poor Crooks in his stable-room, making it clear that she would be capable of getting him lynched by falsely accusing him of rape or attempted rape. Steinbeck balances the picture of Curley's wife by describing her dead body from George's point of view, as follows:

Curley's wife lay with a half-covering of yellow hay. And the meanness and the plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face. She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young. Now her rouged cheeks and her reddened lips made her seem alive and sleeping very lightly.

It is significant that Curley's wife has no name, but is simply referred to in relation to her husband in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Thus, she is easily perceived by the reader as an intruder upon the motif of the brotherhood of man, a temptress, an Eve, who seduces men away from the meaningful fraternity which keeps them content and fulfilled with their ilk who help them measure the world.  For, Crooks, the lonely hostler, says that life is no good without a companion, and George declares that men who are alone become mean while he and Lennie, on the contrary, have a future because they have each other.

George is cynical about women; their enticing sexuality causes men to behave in ways that they would not if left to themselves.  He cautions Lennie about Curley's wife,

I seen 'em [women] poison before, but I never seen no pice of jail bait worse than her.  You leave her be.

And, Curley's wife reinforces this cynicism of George as in her loneliness--with which the reader can sympathise--she seeks attention by employing her feminine wiles:

She put her hands behind her back and leaned against the door frame so that her body was thrown forward....She smiled archly and twitched her body.

This solitary woman who acts as the temptress underscores the theme of alienation as destructive, for she, like the men who become mean in their aloneness and destructive in their weakest is predatory in her seductiveness and effects the greatest destruction, that of the life of the innocent Lennie.  Curley's wife seems of less importance as an individual character than as a archetypal character who tempts Lennie to touch her hair, thus bringing about the climax which demonstrates the obstacles to men's reaching brotherhood/fraternity.  For, women have no place in a world structured around brotherly bonds.

The important part of this chapter is not about where she went afterwards, but what happens while she's there.   The chapter actually isn't very specific on where she went.  It just says that she "slipped out the door and disappeared into the dark barn."  We assume she goes back up to the house. 

However, it is important to note what happened in the bunkhouse in chapter 4.  She comes into the bunkhouse when Candy, Lennie, and Crooks were discussing the dream farm.  There is some argument between Candy and Curley's wife because he tries to get her to leave.  She mentions that she's lonely and just needs someone to talk to.  The conversation ends with her threatening Candy and Crooks and threatening to have Crooks hanged.  It's important to note how Crooks attitude/mood changes during this scene.  Before she threatened him, he was actually opening up to Candy and Lennie, but with that one remark from Curley's wife he immediately withdrew again. 

Candy finally gets her to leave by saying that he hears the men coming back from town.  We know from previous chapters that Curley was was very jealous and did not want her hanging around the barn and particularly the men in the barn.  This is effective in getting her to leave because she doesn't want to get in trouble with Curley.  She goes back through the barn and we assume she goes back up to the house.

This question might assume too much.  It is not certain that Curley's wife seeks power.  That said, she does have a certain amount of power and does exercise it at times. If we had to argue that she does seek power, then there are a few reasons why she does so. 

First, as the lone women on the ranch, she feels alone.  She is also in a loveless marriage with the boss's son, Curley.  So, if she is going to have a voice, she has to seek power in a world dominated by men. It is also noteworthy that she is never given a name. 

Second, she is in the company of rough working men.  So, if she is going to have respect, it will be when she has power, arguably the only language that the men understand.  Hence, she has to seek power. 

We get a glimpse of this, when she talks to Crooks.  She reprimands and asserts her power. Here is an excerpt:

She turned on him in scorn. “Listen, Nigger,” she said. “You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?"

Crooks stared hopelessly at her, and then he sat down on his bunk and drew into himself.