CURLEYS DREAM PRESENTATION BY AMELIA JOHN AMELIA DEAKIN

CURLEY'S DREAM PRESENTATION BY AMELIA JOHN, AMELIA DEAKIN, RIHAM, DUDU, MADDIE AND LAUREN

What is Curley's Dream? Curley's dream is to be an ideal male in the 1930 s American society – and he tries to do this by treating his wife like property and by acting rather violent towards his fellow ranch workers, especially Lennie and Crooks. He tries to act like the ideal male, but he distorts this image because of his Napoleon complex and toxic masculinity. If we view Slim as the truly ideal male in this society, as he described in the novel - as "the prince of the ranch", and as someone who's "authority was so great that his word was taken on any subject", we can clearly see differences between him and Curley. Despite Curley being the boss' son, Slim is the most admired on the ranch, and the worker with the most authority other than the boss. They are even compared at a point in the novel – when Candy says "Slim don't need to wear no high-heeled boots on a grain team. ", insinuating that Slim is more of a man than Curley because he has the confidence to be himself and to not compensate for anything with fights or heeled boots, whereas Curley feels like he needs to wear heeled boots and pick fights to feel more superior than the other men.

Quotes To Show Curley's Dream. § Page 134 : "Curley's gonna want to shoot 'im. Curley's still mad about his hand. " § Page 90 : "Come on, ya big bastard. Get up on your feet. No big son-of-a-bitch is gonna laugh at me. " § Page 133 : "I'll kill the big son-of-a-bitch myself. " § Page 26 : Curley's like a lot 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. You seen little guys like that, ain't you? Always scrappy? " § "Well next time answer when you're spoken to. " § "[Curley’s] eyes passed over the new men and he stopped. He glanced coldly at George and then at Lennie. His arms gradually bent at the elbows and his hands closed into fists. "

How He Tries To Follow Society When George and Lennie first encounter Curley the following conversation occurs: "We travel together, " George said coldly. "Oh, so it's that way. " This suggests that Curley doesn't understand strong male relationships, as he fails to see George and Lennie's friendship, and quickly mistakes it with an exploitative relationship. To meet the 'ideal male' aspect, he tries to pick a fight with everyone and show his masculinity instead of forming relationships. He needs to show that he is dominant on the ranch by making others feel intimidated. Therefore, he has little grasp on relationships as he's driving people away from him because of his reckless, violent nature.

How Does Curley Treat His Wife? o The relationship between Curley and his wife is presented to be a very turbulent relationship. Curley expresses how possessive of his wife he is in Chapter 2 when he constantly asks the men where his wife is and suspects that many of guys have gotten with her. At the same time, we can also see how Curley doesn't treat his wife well when Curley's wife confesses to Lennie that Curley 'ain't a nice fella'. o Curley is obviously the arrogant type and likes to show off, as we know he tells the other men on the ranch that wears a "glove fulla of Vaseline" to "keep his hand soft for his wife". We can imply that he realizes that his wife is beautiful and he knows that she will be an attraction for the other men, he uses the excuse of wearing a glove to show the men that his wife is his property and so shows off to the men. o Curley treats his wife poorly because his dream is to be the ideal man which is being masculine and strong during he 1930 s and achieves this by beating her and only using her for his own sexual pleasure. Curley tries to control his wife by not letting her talk to the other characters on the ranch but ultimately fails when Curley's Wife goes around the ranch talking to the other men and defeats his goal of controlling her.

Why Curley's dream failed: Curley's dream ultimately failed because nobody on the ranch sees him as the 'ideal male' or look up to him. They all think he's a violent and nasty, none of them respect him. Instead everyone on the ranch looks up to Slim who is seen as 'God-like' by the other characters. They say he "moved with a majesty achieved only by royalty". This shows they believe Slim carries the authority and nobility of the most important people in the country which shows how important and respected he is by people on the ranch. Unlike Curley who isn't respected on the ranch because they believe he is a bully. Not only this, to seem superior to the other men on the ranch, Curley gets married. However, this backfires because everyone on the ranch thinks his wife is "tart" so instead of respecting him for getting a wife, they disrespect him for marrying "jail-bait". Therefore, his dream failed because all his attempts to be the 'ideal male' of the 1930's, backfire and end up making him look the opposite of how he wants to look to everyone else.

How does Curley's dream affect his relationships with other men on the ranch? Curley's hatred of 'big guys' is due to the fact that he is not a big guy himself. We can also see how Curley is very much resentful towards bigger men and explains why Curley, undeniably, dislikes Lennie. The other men on the ranch see him as behaving in an unfair manner and choosing to disrespect the other characters poorly as he has power over them due to being the boss's son. "Seems like Curley ain't giving nobody a chance" shows how Curley picks fights with bigger men. If he wins he can show off about beating a bigger man, if he loses he can complain about how the man was so big and it was not a fair fight which shows how whether he loses or wins, he will always gets his way. His dream is to be a 'big guy' so by picking fights with them he is trying to show that he is a 'big guy'.

The end of the novel The only time that Curley could be seen to live out his dream is after his Wife's death. In this moment, Curley is finally has a reason to attack Lennie with the violence that he craves. He "worked himself" into a rage in an attempt to construct the image of a grieving husband, but the reality is that he lusts to shoot Lennie, revealed thorugh his graphic description of what he would do to him. In this moment, Curley orders the other men to fetch guns or other 'jobs' and the men immediately listen to him. Consequently, this is the only moment that he achieves the authority he has always craved.