Fate

Question 1

Loneliness is inevitable

Answer 1

• The last of his key moments is when his loneliness has built up and manifested itself in frustration
• “He looked helplessly at Curley’s wife and gradually his sorrow and his anger grew into words’
• He acts out of character, calling her a ‘Goddamn tramp’
• “he looked helplessly” suggests that his loneliness has broken him down
• proves Crooks quote when he says ‘i tell ya, a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick’.

Question 2

Inevitability of G&L’s dream failing, as shown through the natural world around them

Answer 2

• novella begins describing an idyllic riverbank, where “the golden foothill slopes curve up”, ‘twinkling’ imagery
• When humans enter the scene tone shifts: there is a path “beaten hard by boys” and “an ash pile made by many fires.”
  -This early passage demonstrates the uncertain and harmful relationship between humans and nature
• This can be seen by G&L’s dream to own land and to be self-sufficient; their idea of success is dominance over nature
• To them, nature central to their future and that it why the setting of the brush is vital in creating a cyclical structure to reflect that
• It is where there dream is first introduced to us, and where it is last. Nature reflects the inevitable fate that their dream was never going to happen

Question 3

Inevitable fate of a working class woman trying to make something of herself

Answer 3

‘ he says he was gonna put me in the movies, he says I was a natural’

• The establishment of dramatic irony emphasises the tragedy of Curley’s wife’s life.
• Her dream was never materialised. ‘He says I was a natural’ -noun.
• He was only complimenting her to get her to do what he wanted.
• In reality it was never going to happen, reflecting the inevitable tragedy of a working class woman trying to make something of herself. Reader feels sympathy for how she was groomed. Golden age of Hollywood when this was a common thing.
• Now she’s left isolated, confined and unhappy on the ranch. With the sickening dramatic irony that her dream was never going to come true. Her happiness and hope for the future, essentially an insidious lie from a perverted movie director