Curley's Wife is Dead

In Part 5 of Of Mice and Men, Lennie accidentally snaps Curley's wife's neck. He was stroking her hair and then we she started yelling at him to let go, he froze and just kept a grip on her hair. He wouldn't let go even though, " And she continued to struggle, and her eyes were wild with terror. He shook her then, and he was angry with her. 'Don't you go yellin,' he said, and he shook her; and her body flooped like a fish. And then she was still, for Lennie had broken her neck" (91). After Lennie accidentally kills her, we hear a description of what she looks like. The description is slightly ironic because it states," 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" (92 - 93). She was always previously described about being extremely made up, and now that she was dead she look very pretty and simple. She was always trying to look beautiful and she was usually described as someone very heavily made up, with too much make-up that didn't make her look beautiful. But, when she died she looked a very naturally beautiful woman. Also, only when she died, did she lose the ache for attention and all the discontent she had felt. She always wanted to be content and beautiful and only when she was dead did that happen. Steinbeck used irony with her character by giving her everything that she wanted once she was dead.