Thursday, January 27, 2011

Bedroom Opening

The air is cold. With the loss of feeling, life, and love, there is no warmth in the air. There is no one. Lavender walls and green and tan cabinets give the room an earthy feeling. The rectangular, flower-designed bed sits in the middle of the south wall and takes up most of the area of the confined space. This bed contains four pillows and two blankets, which are the only source of warmth throughout the room. At the foot of the bed is a small cabinet for irrelevant objects, such as blankets and pillows for guests.  Parallel to the foot of the bed is a closet that is hidden by bleached white sliding doors. Adjacent to the bed is a night stand that holds many personal possessions. Atop the night stand is a purple-tinted, translucent lamp, an alarm clock, and a box of cereal. On the other side of the bed are two dressers, one is thin and tall while the other is short and twice as wide as the other. Pictures of only the closest family members are framed and placed on the tall dresser.  The wider dresser holds a mirror at the top. The mirror is bordered by a wood frame carved with a constant pattern. Along the border of the mirror are pictures depicting memories with good friends and loving family.  An abandoned television sits on the corner of the dresser, and next to it is a desk made perfectly for a computer. It even has a compartment that can pull out for the keyboard, but there is no computer. In the gap of the desk is a black, rolling chair just waiting to be sat on. The whole set of furniture in the room is an olive green shade with borders and knobs that are some kind of a light brown color; they resemble a caramel-covered green apple. Above the computer desk is a lonely window. This window is the only source of light for the lone room, and can only be fed in the early hours of the morning. The only thing on the west wall is a door, located towards the corner of the room, leading to a bathroom. The following necessary items are located in the bathroom: a sink, two mirrors, a toilet, and a shower. There is not much that goes on in this bedroom, and it barely has any visitors during the day. It is now half passed midnight and the room receives its first visitor. They lay in bed, think about the day’s events, pray to and thank God for the past day and many more to come, then quietly fall asleep. 

Monday, January 24, 2011

Of Mice and Men-Chapter 5: Does Curley's wife get what she deserves?

In the novel Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck demonstrates through the characterization of Curley’s wife that you should not judge someone before you get to know them, and the struggles they have been through. Throughout the book, most of the guys on the ranch always refer to Curley’s wife as “jail bait” because she is always flirting with everyone even though she is married to Curley, who barely gets her attention. For example, on page 51, Whit told George about the things she does, “‘Well, stick around an’ keep your eyes open. You’ll see plenty. She ain’t concealin’ nothing. I never seen nobody like her. She got the eye goin’ all the time on everybody. I bet she even gives the stable buck they eye. I don’t know what the hell she wants.’” The guys on the ranch already look down on her because she is a woman of their society. They barely know her and the hardships she has gone through. She as treated as if she is committing the worst sin in the world. She is just trying to deal with the circumstances she is in. On page 88, John Steinbeck expresses how Curley’s wife really feels about living on the ranch. She attempts to talk to Lennie but Lennie is trying to avoid her because of what George told him, “‘Well, George says you’ll get us in a mess.’ ‘Aw, nuts!’ she said. ‘what kinda harm am I doin’ to you? Seems like they ain’t non of them cares how I gotta live. I tell you I ain’t used to livin’ like this. I coulda made somethin’ of myself.’” She did not deserve what had happened to her. Although Curley’s wife was not always “faithful” to Curley, she was not treated like a human being, so she just wanted to feel like someone cared about her. Everyone on the ranch acts like the only thing Curley’s wife should do is stay at home and wait until Curley gets home. She does not even want to be there. Again on page 88, she explains to Lennie her story of how she ended up there, even if though he was not really listening and paying attention to her, “‘ ‘Nother time I met a guy, an’ he was in pitchers. Went out to the Riverside Dance Palace with him. He says he was gonna put me in the movies. Says I was a natural. Soon’s he got back to Hollywood he was gonna write to me about it.’ She looked closely at Lennie to see whether she was impressing him ‘I never got that letter,’ she said. ‘I always thought my ol’ lady stole it. Well, I wasn’t gonna stay no place where I couldn’t get nowhere or make something of myself, an’ where they stole your letters. I ast her if she stole it, too, an’ she says no. So I married Curley. Met him out to the Riverside Dance Palace that same night,’” Marrying Curley was something his wife had done out of anger and rebellion. In the barn, she was trying to be friends with Lennie by letting him feel her hair because she now knows that he likes to pet soft things. She did not deserve to be killed by Lennie when he got scared because she was yelling. This exemplifies how it is not good to judge people before you get to know them.