Comparing Lady Macbeth and Curley’s Wife Essay

Of Mice and Men, write in 1937 by John Steinbeck, and Macbeth, written in 1606 by William Shakespe are, two portray women as linked to the downf on the whole of male characters. Both dictation and reinvigorated were set and written at convictions where women did not provoke publicy rights. Macbeth was first performed in 1606 which was a gray society and the perceive Right of Kings meant that people believed that kings were chosen by God to rule and so get the better ofing a king, or regicide, was conside florid to be the greatest sin that could be committed.I will be looking at maam Macbeth who has a sinister control oer her husband. Of Mice and Men was written in the time of the Great Depression by this point in history, women had s keened to receive whatever rights such as voting, but they were the first to lose their jobs when the Depression came and many had to become housewives once ag ain. Curleys married woman represents the frustration of women in this age. This stress will focus on the similarities and differences between the two characters and how they are stand for thought structure, language and themes.The audience first meets noblewoman Macbeth in set 1 sight 5. She is reading a letter from Macbeth explaining the tear downts that just took aspire with the witches. This is followed by her soliloquy, so we hear her thoughts aloud. This indicates that Lady Macbeth will have tycoon all over the events in the job, since she begins fleckting the murder of the king this display of great reason is archaic for a woman in the 17th degree centigrade, which is further suggested by the point 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 overlord and later the king. After the reign of Queen Elizabeth, society was anxious intimately powerful women and would have been very anxious about Lady Macbeth since she begins to plot murder while reading the letter saying Yet do I fear thy / nature It is too full of the milk of gentleman kindness to catch the nearest way. nearest way is a euphemism for murder. She limns boldness and is critical of her husband.Lady Macbeth and Curleys wife twain certify disdain for their husbands. In dress 2 barb 2, Lady Macbeth is artful towards her husband, as she complains to him for returning the daggers to the scene of the crime, by saying My slews are of your colour, but I rape / to wear a heart so lily-white, white is tie in to innocence or without sin. This relates to the context as during the Jacobean men are meant have line of c passingity hearts from all the people they have killed and for a woman to call a mans heart white, and for her to be shamed by it he mustiness be less manly than her. The relationship between Curley and Curleys wife is seen without trust passim the development of the book.Curleys wife does not press to be under his masculine control Curleys w ife says envisage I standardised to stick in that house alla time? The new-fashioneds 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 Curleys 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 hit 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, protection and pri discussion. Lady Macbeth on reading the letter sent for Macbeth increases in immorality 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 doesnt last long for the queen as her guard is down and her emotions escape her during her sleepwalking scene, as she says out, damned defect, a spot can be referred to a rounded label stain made by a foreign matter, as mud, blood, paint, ink, and so on She is not referring to a physical spot but the leak of her emotions, the blood stained spot of King Duncan, this is in addition shoes Lady Macbeths more famine side which the audience expected of a egg-producing(prenominal) in the Jacobean patriarchal society. Macbeths fortress comes crumbling before him at the end of Scene 5 ending with his wipeout, 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 authorise are quite the opposite.Curleys wifes decisions affect the stabilit y 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 owners son and is the only virtuoso 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 hard-and-fast with his wife such as making her stay at home. With his wife know going around the ranch with near see-through pass 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 adept 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 That big son of a bitch through with(p) it. I know he done it.Both females characters foreshadow important event in the texts. Foreshadowing is seen bully awa y when we meet Lady Macbeth when she speaks her soliloquy. During this soliloquy Lady Macbeth rants about her husband, when she mentions fuck off 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 closing as she opened herself unconsciously, in front of the stretch and nurse, and says Theres a knocking at the door. threshold 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 accomplish when Lady Macbeth is said to of killed herself off-stage. In Of Mice and Men foreshadowing is seen in chapter 2 when Curleys wife introduced physically to the reader. The text describes her as She had full, roug ed lips Her fingernails were red like sausages red mules,.. of red ostrich feathers. Red is of the colour of good blood, and so her appearance shows her death in the near future ascribable to her desperation to catch the attention of everyone on the farm. This is because many people matte powerless and frustrated during the Great Depression.In the entrance to the new characters, George and Lennie, the scene is described Both men glanced up, for the rectangle of sunshine in the ingress 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 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.rouged cheeks and her reddened lips this proves that the foreshadowing at the start is related to her death at the end of the book. Curleys 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 Curleys wifes 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 humiliation 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 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 unexpended as during the Jacobean era women were expected to obey their husbands, but or else she is more masculine that her own husband. In Act 5 Scene 5, Seyton e motionlessly 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 Curleys wife is less important at the start of the novel as we hear her in a conversation between dulcify and George, as Candy describes Curleys wife as a 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 discriminatory society and men were still dominant. At the end of the book Curleys 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 Lennies 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 husbands jobs and when the husbands returned some realized that women could do more than be housewives.We witness Curleys wife first performance of power over a male character in chapter 4, at Crookss predominate room when she turns on him and says Listen, Nigger. The word Nigger is a swaggering term used to refer to a member of any dingy people. By using this term to a black person shows that Curleys wife has a little amount of power in this patriarchal also by Crookss after reaction of curling into a ball this also shows her power a only the week debase 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 Crookss Curleys wife says I could get you strung upon a tree so easy it aint even funny. Strung upon a tree this is called lynch lynching was first started in America by in the eighteenth century and was mostly stopped by 1920. Black people who went against white people in the 1930 still got hanged on a tree, thi s term shows the power in which Curleys wife holds over black people, as comfortably as mentioning this to a black person is very offensive as over thirty thousand negros died and shows the reason why Crooks reduced himself to nothing.Both Lady Macbeth and Curleys wife are the cause of the sorrow around them leading to both Lennie and Macbeths 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. Curleys 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.