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In Of Mice and Man by John Steinbeck, how long were Curley and his wife together before getting married?

Curley and his wife are two of the important characters in John Steinbeck's novella Of Mice and Men. They act as antagonists to the main characters of George and Lennie. George and Lennie come to work on the ranch owned by Curley's father. Through the first few chapters, the reader learns very little about the two, except that Curley is often belligerent and ready to fight, and that his wife is derisively described by...

Curley and his wife are two of the important characters in John Steinbeck's novella Of Mice and Men. They act as antagonists to the main characters of George and Lennie. George and Lennie come to work on the ranch owned by Curley's father. Through the first few chapters, the reader learns very little about the two, except that Curley is often belligerent and ready to fight, and that his wife is derisively described by the working men on the ranch as a "tramp" or a "tart." It is not until Chapter Five that more is revealed about Curley's wife when she is alone with Lennie in the barn. She confesses to Lennie that she is terribly lonely and that she doesn't even like Curley ("He ain't a nice fella."). She also claims that she could have been in the movies and that a man had approached her at the "Riverside Dance Palace" telling her that he could make her into an actress. He offers to send her a letter with details, but she never receives the letter and tells Lennie that she thought her mother withheld it from her. It is then that she meets Curley at the dance palace and marries him not long after their first meeting:






“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.” 





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