The
precise age of Curley's wife is not stated, but there are indications that she is very young.
Whensays, "Gosh, she was purty,"blows up.
"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 here. You leave her be."
"Jail bait" has always meant a promiscuous underage girl
who can get a man sent to prison for statutory rape. (At that time the "age of
consent" was eighteen.) At least one other man refers to her as "jail bait." Late
in the novel when she is talking to Lennie in the barn she tells part of her life's story and
indicates that she wanted to run away with a man when she was only fifteen. She could have been
as young as sixteen when she married Curley. Her story makes it clear that she was anxious to
find a man and get away from home as soon as possible.
The probable reasons
for Steinbeck's...
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