How do Anju and Sudha keep their relationship strong?

In Sister Of My Heart, Anju and Sudha keep their relationship strong by devising creative methods to maintain an emotional connection.

In their childhood, both girls sleep in twin beds in Anju's room even though Sudha officially has her own room next to her mother. By the time they are old enough to attend school together, the girls come up with creative ways to stay close throughout the school day. Despite the fact that the nuns separate the girls for a time, the intervention of Anju's mother restores the status quo: Anju and Sudha, sisters of the heart, together always.

When disaster strikes and Anju's mother, Gouri Ma, has a heart attack, Anju is forced to agree to an early marriage. Additionally, Sudha is also obliged to marry due to her mother's fear that her attractive daughter would bring shame to the family name should she be sexually compromised. Nalini forces Sudha to agree to marry Ramesh despite Sudha's love for Ashok, a young man of a lower caste. Even in marriage, the two girls maintain their strong connection by marrying their husbands on the same day. They also go through the same ritualistic preparations for marriage prior to the double wedding.

Even after their respective marriages, both girls manage keep in touch through phone calls and letters. In Chapter 24, Anju takes a train to Bardhaman to visit Sudha in her marital home. Despite their love for each other, Anju is clearly worried about Sudha. The young, vivacious, and romantic girl she has grown up with has been relegated to the position of a household drudge by her imperious mother-in-law. Meanwhile, Sudha tries to put on a brave face so that she does not worry Anju. Here, you can see that, although both girls maintain contact, their emotional connection is slowly being eroded by their vastly different circumstances. Additionally, Anju must resolve her own jealous feelings about her husband's attraction to Sudha; this latent, emotional conflict threatens to drive a wedge between the two women as they navigate their adult lives.

When Anju and Sunil move to America, both women must rely on snatched conversations over the phone to maintain their relationship. Both women become pregnant at around the same time; however, Sudha's circumstances are vastly different from Anju's. Sudha's baby is a girl, and her mother-in-law wants her to abort the baby. Anju's baby is a boy who will be born in America.

As Sudha scrambles to decide her future, Anju is left helpless. She tells Sudha to go back home to their mothers, but Sudha tells her that her mother prefers her to go through with the abortion; the only other option is divorce if Sudha wants to save her baby. Both women know that divorce would be a life-long stigma for Sudha. Harassed beyond endurance with worry and fear, Anju secretly works at the college library to earn enough for Sudha's airfare to the United States. When Sunil discovers what Anju has been doing, he is furious, angry that Anju may be putting her baby and her health at risk.

Sunil also has his own reasons for not wanting Sudha to move in with them; he is still sexually attracted his wife's beautiful sister. Meanwhile, the last scene of the novel sees Anju and Sunil picking Sudha and her baby up at the airport. Despite having lived many miles apart, the women are together once more. As to whether they will continue to maintain their strong relationship in the future, the novelist is silent on that point.

In "The Veldt," why is the children's virtual room called a "nursery" instead of a play room?

The term "nursery" suggests a place where the children are raised, not kept entertained, which is why Ray Bradbury's word choice in "The Veldt" is extremely important. David McClean, the psychologist George and Lydia calls to diagnose the room, directly spells out this idea: "This room is their mother and father, far more important than their real parents."

This idea of the nursery as parent is the reason why the children's loyalty toward the room is complete, while their parents consistently disappoint them. Throughout the story, the narrator reveals how the children had drifted away from their parents in general, but particularly when they introduced the nursery to the house. The parents consistently let the children down. They tell David that they let their children down when they wouldn't let them go to New York and then when they shut down the nursery for a few days until the children finished their homework. 

Finally, as a child would when someone threatens his or her actual parents, Wendy and Peter defend the room completely. Sensing the threat of losing the nursery, their primary caregiver, they lure their mother and father into the magical room where hungry lions are waiting to eat them.

How have human cultural practices influenced the patterns of infectious diseases? Note: be sure to discuss a specific infectious disease other...

We often think and talk about disease on such a micro scale that we can forget to look at how the big picture enables or hinders the spread of disease. While poor hygiene and poor nutrition or an otherwise weakened immune system play a part in the transmission and infection, it's important to also consider how culture sets up the world where disease may be transmitted.

Let's look at the prevalence of disease in Victorian England. After the industrial revolution, many people moved to the cities in search of work in factories or other industrial production centers. Unfortunately, housing and public health services could not keep up with population growth, and a significant portion of the lower and working classes lived in very crowded and dirty dwellings. Education was heavily classed at this time, which meant that many people went without an understanding of health and disease beyond folklore. Even in the most professional spheres, it was not common for physicians to wash their hands until after the work of Joseph Lister in the 1860's.

Due to the cramped and unsanitary conditions in which Victorian people lived and worked, disease was quickly spread. Tuberculosis, cholera, and smallpox laid waste to many families and factory workers. Just one person infected with any of these diseases could unknowingly infect all those around them, and so on.

Sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis are enabled or hindered in their prevalence by the cultures of sex and health they develop in. In a culture which places a negative moral value on birth control which creates a barrier between the genitalia and sexual fluids, they may be restricted access to such contraception. Even in a culture with a negative view of pre- or extra-marital sex, or sex or pleasure, these things do still occur and restricted access to contraception is a contributing factor in the spread of disease. Sex education, or lack thereof, also plays a part in the spread of disease. When someone does not recognize the symptoms of a disease like syphilis, or is unaware of how it can be spread, their ignorance may contribute to the transmission of the disease. Stigma on sexually transmitted disease also makes people less likely to seek treatment or tell sexual partners out of feelings of fear and shame.

What are some examples of how Odysseus has demonstrated a thirst for home?

Odysseus demonstrates his thirst for home in many ways.  Although he spends a full year enjoying himself at Circe's home, he eventually approaches her, asking her to "'fulfill the promise [she] made to send [him] home.'"  This shows that he would rather get home to his wife and family than to continue even in the house of a "heavenly goddess."  She sends him to the Land of the Dead to find the prophet Teiresias, a seer who can tell him how to get home.  Odysseus, then, is so anxious to return home that he is willing to call on Hades and dread Persephone and the shades of the dead to help him.

Further, when Odysseus later describes his time with both Circe and Calypso, another goddess who kept him for several years and would not let him leave, he says that "'they never beguiled the heart within [his] breast.  Nothing more sweet than home and parents can there be [...].'"  Therefore, even when he kept company with some of the most beguiling, the most beautiful of immortals, he still desires to return to Ithaca more.  It makes sense that Odysseus would long to escape terrible situations to return home, but he also desires to leave really amazing situations to get home as well.  These instances help to show just how much he thirsts for his home.

What is the relationship between taste and smell?

Our mouth and nose work together in order to provide us with the sensation of different tastes. In fact, the episode "Taste and Smell" by Newton’s Apple states that “seventy to seventy-five percent of what we perceive as taste actually comes from our sense of smell. Taste buds allow us to perceive only bitter, salty, sweet, and sour flavors.” However, foods often provide us with a complexity of tastes that are a combination of these four basic categories of taste.

The odor molecules from the foods that reach our noses provide us with most of our taste sensations. When food is placed in a mouth, these odor molecules enter the passageway that is found between the nose and mouth. The odor molecules then reach the olfactory receptors that are located behind the bridge of the nose at the top of the nasal cavity that lies under the olfactory bulbs of the brain. The olfactory bulb of the brain is the region of the vertebrae forebrain that allows different smells to be distinguished.

How can I write a topic sentence, concrete details, and commentary for a paragraph about the impossibility of the American Dream in Steinbeck's Of...

One of the major themes in Of Mice and Men is the quest for the American Dream. George and Lennie, along with Candy and briefly Crooks share the quintessential dream of owning "a little piece of land." Throughout American history the goal of owning one's own land and having both freedom and security has been part of the Dream.

Unfortunately for the characters in the novel their dreams of ownership are never fulfilled. Although George, Lennie and Candy are poised to capture their dream, Lennie's killing of Curley's wife destroys their plans. 

Here's an example of a paragraph using the Jane Shaffer model that should help:

As the title of his novel suggests, Steinbeck, from the outset, sets up his characters for failure in the quest to own a piece of land and realize their American Dream. The lines (from the Robert Burns poem "To a Mouse,") "the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray" directly relate to the final outcome of the novel. Even though George, Lennie and Candy are dreaming of the day when they can quit working for someone else and go live on their own farm we already know that these dreams are doomed. Steinbeck uses foreshadowing to show us that eventually Lennie will do "another bad thing" and disrupt their plans. Just as he did in Weed, Lennie is drawn to the shiny or the soft and he accidentally kills Curley's wife while stroking her hair.  In chapter four, Crooks does a good job of summing up the idea that the dream can never be realized:

“You guys is just kiddin’ yourself. You’ll talk about it a hell of a lot, but you won’t get no land. You’ll be a swamper here till they take you out in a box. Hell, I seen too many guys. Lennie here’ll quit an’ be on the road in two, three weeks. Seems like ever’ guy got land in his head.” 

Crooks is only partly right. Unfortunately for Lennie he loses not only his job but his life and George is unwilling to carry on with the dream without his friend. George says,

"I think I knowed from the very first. I think I know’d we’d never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would.”

For Steinbeck the world in Of Mice and Men is a deterministic place and even though someone may have dreams they rarely come to fruition.

What did Bud carry in his suitcase and why were those items important to him?

Bud carries around several important items in his suitcase throughout the novel. These items are significant to Bud because they remind him of his mother who passed away when he was six, and he believes they are clues that will lead him to his biological father. Bud carries around five flyers that depict Herman E. Calloway, a famous musician, and his band performing at various locations. Bud believes that Herman E. Calloway is his biological father. Bud also carries around a picture of his mother wearing a gigantic cowboy hat, while she is sitting on a small horse. Bud keeps this photo of his mother in an envelope and recalls why she looks so sad in the photo. Bud also keeps five rocks that belonged to his mother in a brown tobacco bag. These rocks have locations and dates written on them. The rocks come from places where Herman E. Calloway has performed. At the end of the novel, Bud learns that Herman's daughter asked him to bring back a rock when he went to play a concert out of town one day. Ever since, Herman has collected a rock at each place that he plays. Bud uses these items to guide him to Grands Rapids where he meets his grandfather, Herman E. Calloway.

What is ironic about Montresor's concern for Fortunate's health in "The Cask of Amontillado"?

What is ironic, or deliberately contrary to what the Fortunato expects, about Montresor's concern for his health is that Montresor's real intent is to cause harm to the man.

Another interesting aspect is that Montresor's verbal irony has not only the intent of deceiving Fortunato that he is worried about his cough, but it also has a subversive motive behind it, as well. For, in addition to feigning concern for Fortunato, Montresor repeats the opposite of what he means in order to spur Fortunato to move farther and farther into the catacombs more recklessly and irrationally. Evidently, Montresor has discovered what Mark Twain calls "a great law of human action; namely,

...that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. [The Adventures of Tom Sawyer]

Thus, with the ironic concern and urging for them to turn back, Montresor makes "the thing (the Amontillado) difficult to attain," so that Fortunato covets it all the more, and in his cupidity loses his reason to the point that when Montresor fetters him to a wall, Fortunato is "too much astounded to resist." 

Please give an analysis of lines 297-300 of Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism, Part Two. Thank you.

The lines to which you are referring in Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism" are:

297 With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part,

298 And hide with Ornaments their want of art.

299 True wit is nature to advantage dress'd,

300 What oft' was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;

These lines occur in a section describing types of bad critic who to "Conceit alone their taste confine". Conceit refers to a very elaborate type of extended metaphor that draws parallels between the intellectual and spiritual worlds and the physical world, often using very technical scientific or philosophical vocabulary, which was favored by the Metaphysical poets. Pope objects to the use of conceits, seeing them as unpoetic. In this passage, he describes conceits as being like ornaments which mask a basic lack of good substance, rather as a chef might use lots of spices to cover up poor quality ingredients.

In the second of the two couplets, Pope suggests that real wisdom for a poet, as opposed to superficial cleverness, consists of shaping universal truths in pleasing form. His view is deeply religious, in that he sees nature as something created by God and understood instinctively by great ancient poets such as Homer. The modern poet, in Pope's opinion, should modestly try to understand these eternal truths rather than departing from them and valuing his own ego and originality instead.

Why doesn't Aunt Alexandra want Scout to invite Walter Cunningham over?

Aunt Alexandra is very cognizant of what she considers to be the class structure in Maycomb County.  Even though the Finches are cash-poor, they are rich in land, because of their ownership of Finch's Landing, and in something Jem calls "background."  Jem believes Aunt Alexandra associates "background" with the number of generations that a family has been literate - meaning that all children in that generation are taught to read and write - and also the level of education achieved by at least the male family members.  Atticus is a lawyer and his younger brother, Jack, is a doctor. In Aunt Alexandra's mind, this is the type of future intended for Jem.  And while Scout is stubborn and tomboyish, Aunt Alexandra most likely imagines that Scout will be married to a man who comes from a similar family as the Finches - a man with "background."

Associating with the Cunninghams for anything other than business would tarnish the reputations of both Scout and Jem.  Aunt Alexandra points out several attributes of the Cunningham family that make them "inferior" to the Finches: they drink; they have bad habits.  Ultimately when Scout keeps needling her about why Scout cannot invite Walter over to their house, Aunt Alexandra says, “Because— he—is—trash, that’s why you can’t play with him. I’ll not have you around him, picking up his habits and learning Lord-knows-what" (Lee 228). 

Aunt Alexandra believes that a person's worth is determined by their "background," which is a strange blending of family, education, socio-economic status, and race. Even if Walter Cunningham separates from his farming family and gets a college education; even if he gets rid of the hookworms he has from going barefoot, because his family can't afford shoes, and eats three square meals of good food a day to fatten him up, he will still be "inferior" in Aunt Alexandra's eyes.  She says: "The thing is, you can scrub Walter Cunningham till he shines, you can put him in shoes and a new suit, but he’ll never be like Jem. Besides, there’s a drinking streak in that family a mile wide. Finch women aren’t interested in that sort of people” (Lee 228).

This complex notion of "background" is very difficult for both Scout and Jem to understand.  Their father seems to be trying to raise his children with compassion for others, such as when he teaches his children to "walk in someone else's" shoes and the Christian concept of thankfulness embodied in the phrase "there but for the grace of God, go I." Jem finally decides that there are four classes of people in Maycomb County. He tells Scout "There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes" (Lee 230). And unfortunately in Jem's mind this class structure exists simply so one group of people has another group of people to look down upon which makes them feel better about their station in life.

He says: "The thing about it is, our kind of folks don’t like the Cunninghams, the Cunninghams don’t like the Ewells, and the Ewells hate and despise the colored folks" (Lee 230). 

Even though Aunt Alexandra attempts to cloak her racism and class-ism in politeness and gentility, her belief about the Cunninghams and even the fact that she will not allow Scout and Jem to go to Calpurnia's house, because Calpurnia is considered of the lowest class of society because she is African-American, even though she has worked for the Finch family her entire life and is more of a mother to the children than Aunt Alexandra will ever be - these beliefs are ugly and shallow.  Both the reader and Scout respond to this ugliness and Scout beautifully sums up her idea about the "kinds of folks."

She says: "No, everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowin‘. That Walter’s as smart as he can be, he just gets held back sometimes because he has to stay out and help his daddy. Nothin’s wrong with him. Naw, Jem, I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks" (Lee 231).

What is Brown's purpose for going into the woods?

Young Goodman Brown gives his clinging, timid wife the impression that he has to go away on a business trip. However, there is considerable foreshadowing in the opening scene suggesting that he is deceiving her and has some entirely different destination in mind.

"Well, she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven.”

With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose.

The author does not state what that evil purpose might be, but the story itself reveals what it is at the climax. Young Goodman Brown, whom everyone regards as a nearly perfect man and ideal husband, is on his way to a devil-worshipping ceremony to be held in the woods. At the high point of the story, the author Nathaniel Hawthorne describes the ceremony with his characteristic brilliance in painting word pictures of settings. We can imagine the big fire lighting up the tall trees and lighting up the faces of many of the people from Young Goodman Brown's village whom he recognizes in attendance.

The great irony in "Young Goodman Brown" is that the timid little wife he thought he had left behind seems to be leading the whole orgy herself. She was mistaken about her husband's morals, but he was also mistaken about hers. Both have very dark sides to their characters which they steadfastly keep hidden from the world. But evidently the evil in their natures is like the pressure building up inside an active volcano and has to come out occasionally. This orgy is that outburst for Brown, his wife, and most of their friends and neighbors.

How did Brown's wife get there ahead of Brown? He left town before she did. A clue is to be found in the story. Brown meets a sinister man on the road who accompanies him on the rest of his journey and tells him:

“You are late, Goodman Brown,” said he. “The clock of the Old South was striking as I came through Boston, and that is full fifteen minutes agone.”

The young man really lacks his wife's aggressiveness and fearlessness. He has been proceeding at a slow pace because he dreads reaching his destination and also because, as the narrator tells us, he is afraid there might be Indians behind every tree. Also, it is very dark out there among the trees, and his wife could easily have slipped past without his knowing it.

So Brown's purpose for going into the woods is to attend a devil-worshipping orgy far away from town and farther away from normal civilized morality. He may have thought he was the only one from his community who would be there, but he finds out that everyone, including his sweet little wife, has the same evil impulses as himself. Was it all a bad dream? Or did it really happen?

Be it so if you will; but, alas! It was a dream of evil omen for young Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream. 

Tom accuses Gatsby of being a Mr Nobody from Nowhere. Discuss the implication of this phrase, both for Gatsby's character and themes of the novel...

Gatsby has built an empire and his fortune with the goal of getting back together with Daisy, his long-lost love. How he got his money is a source of much rumor and he keeps his background as secret as he can amongst the high society that he invites to his lavish parties.

But Tom knows that Gatsby is not from a wealthy family, he knows that he is "new money" and as such considers him to be beneath the level of society and class that he and Daisy live on. The implication is that there is an obstacle to the American dream of wealth that cannot be overcome simply through hard work and good luck and the acquisition of a fortune.

The irony of course is that Tom is likely the most boorish and least "civilized" character in the story. He uses other people anytime it suits him and basically leads Wilson on to the point that he decides to kill Gatsby. The irony of this is an important insight into another theme in the book which is the emptiness of wealth and the illusion that people of the highest social and economic class are somehow better than people with less money or a less sophisticated background.

How would you feel if you meet a friend after twenty years?

Having had this experience, depending on the relationship you once had, this meeting can be either awkward or you can pick up where you left off without any trouble.  The woman I met after such a long time had been a card playing friend whom I enjoyed as a person.  She was funny, kind, and willing to answer questions about kids as she was a nurse.  We lost touch when I quit playing cards, once I moved to a full time teaching job.  She also went from part-time to full-time. 

When I accidentally ran into her at a store, I was quite pleased to see her.  We shared stories of our kids, stories of our work lives and stories of our husbands.  Shortly thereafter, she told me that her husband had cancer.  I supported her emotionally for several months to help her through this awful experience.  I felt glad to do this as I had lost two sisters to cancer.  It was hard to do as she and I had missed twenty years of each other's lives, but the effort worked as it was a shared experience. 

I was glad to do it, she was glad to have me, but after he died, she again disappeared out of my life.  I still have no idea why, but it is what it is.  I still feel sad that she won't answer calls or email, but she is entitled to do as she wishes.  I still think of her, but have learned to leave her alone as that is her choice.  This is how I felt when meeting a friend after twenty years.  My own experience helps shed light on why Jimmy, a policeman, was reluctant to acknowledge Bob, a wanted criminal, and be the one to arrest him after a distanced twenty-year friendship. 

Why does Ralph complain about the fact that Jack's hunters "came back hours ago" and have been swimming? What do you think causes the "madness"...

1. At this point in "The Lord of the Flies," the boys have created a set of rules and have begun a system necessary for survival. Ralph has been voted chief and wants the boys to work on collecting food, building shelters, keeping the fire going (the hunter's job), etc. Ralph is upset because the hunters know their responsibility, yet went off to go swimming before doing their work.

2. Part of what William Golding is questioning in the novel is man's tendency for savagery. When Jack and hunters begin acting like hunters, they are becoming transformed and descending into darkness. Jack and the hunters begin taking on animal-like qualities, and cannot rid themselves of their savagery:

"He [Jack] tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up. 'I went on. I thought, by myself—'

The madness came into his eyes again. 'I thought I might kill.'" (Chapter 3)

3. The basic cause of this disagreement is that Ralph feels that Jack and his hunters are not pulling their weight. Jack feels like he needs to contribute to the group in a way that provides as much validation as being chief (Ralph's job). Since Jack is not as good of a hunter yet, he is quick to be defensive. 

How has Calpurnia developed throughout Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird?

In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, though Scout's relationship with Calpurnia changes as Scout gets older, Calpurnia is actually a static character. A static character is one that does not struggle against any conflict and, therefore, does not change as a result of that conflict. Therefore, though Scout's relationship with Calpurnia does develop as the novel progresses, Calpurnia as a character does not develop. Regardless, we do learn more about her as Scout matures and learns more about Calpurnia herself.

At the beginning of the novel, Scout sees Calpurnia as nothing more than an antagonizer. Scout is frequently getting into trouble with Calpurnia, and Atticus is always taking Calpurnia's side. However, little does Scout realize that Calpurnia sees herself as Scout's mother-figure, and Calpurnia's mother qualities are revealed the more Scout matures.

We first see Calpurnia's mothering qualities when Scout comes home from her first day of school. Calpurnia is so proud of Scout growing up and missed  Scout's presence in the house so much that Calpurnia makes Scout's favorite for dinner, a "pan of cracklin' bread" (Ch. 3). Calpurnia even kisses Scout for the first time. Calpurnia further demonstrates her mothering qualities by protecting the children from the mad dog and even attempting to protect them from the sight of their father shooting the mad dog. In addition, Calpurnia protects the children from Lula's insults the day Calpurnia brings the Finch children to her all-black church as her guests while their father is away.

Later, in Chapter 12, when Jem starts growing up and acting differently, especially by spending less time with his sister and yelling at her for not acting like a girl, we see just how close Scout and Calpurnia have grown over the course of the novel. Calpurnia explains that "Mister Jem" will want to be off by himself a lot now and gives Scout the following invitation:

[Y]ou just come right on in the kitchen when you feel lonesome. We'll find lots of things to do in here. (Ch. 12)

At the beginning of the novel, Scout narrates that Calpurnia was always shooing Scout out of the kitchen. Therefore, Calpurnia's invitation not only shows Calpurnia's motherly attributes, but it also shows she thinks Scout has matured to the point that they can now peacefully spend time together.

Hence, as we can see, Calpurnia displays the same motherly qualities all throughout the novel; however, as Scout's relationship with Calpurnia develops, more of Calpurnia's motherly characteristics are revealed.

Why does John Steinbeck portray Curley’s wife as a threat?

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.