Compare how the female characters are presented in Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ and Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’

One similarity that Lady Macbeth and Curley’s wife share, (other than the fact that they both have no names, and are referred to their husband names), is that they both receive the most tragic punishment at the end in consequence of their own actions. On the one hand Lady Macbeth leads herself to her own death when she starts sleepwalking and going ‘mad’. In Act 5 Scene 1, the doctor himself loses hope; “This disease is beyond my practice.” He says, “Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.” The doctor calls it a ‘disease’ and shows that they cannot do anything about it. This also indicates how women were treated; and how they were not cared for as much as men were and they were immediately left for mad, whereas if it was the men, they would do everything to find out what is wrong with them and find a cure, but women were left to die as mad and crazy. Lady Macbeths ‘disease’ is all a cause of what she has done as she is full of guilt, especially after she finds out that Macduff’s wife and children are dead; “The thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now?” Lady Macbeth realises that it was her influence on Macbeth that has caused him to continue committing crimes, and take innocent live away by brutally slaughtering them. It is after this realisation that Lady Macbeth starts to go mentally insane but this is all in consequence of her own actions. Going back to what I said earlier about how Lady Macbeth calls upon evil spirits and demands (which is something that she seems to do quite often) them to take over her body, she is then seen entering the sleepwalking scene holding a candle, this suggest to us as readers that she is now seeking for a more heavenly direction, it’s symbolic of God and is letting the truth to be told. Previously she calls upon darkness and now is terrified of it and is looking for and heavenly comforter. On the other hand Curley’s wife is the same but also different because, yes, she does die on consequence of her own actions but… we find out something different about her at the end that makes us as readers to feel a bit of sympathy towards her. The fact that Curley’s wife is firstly introduced to us through gossip means that the reader already has already got a negative opinion about Curley’s wife because of the things that have been said about her, such as “tart” and that she’s married but “Already got the eye”. These automatically make us see Curley’s wife as trouble maker and danger even if we have necessarily got to know her character yet. Except, when Curley’s wife dies we see a whole other side of her, a more kind, beautiful, and a sweet young girl that is in a loveless marriage; “And the meanness and the planning’s 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.” Here Curley’s wife is portrayed as a vulnerable, weak, and powerless young girl which is different to how she was first portrayed, Steinbeck also calls her ‘pretty’ and ‘simple’ which is a complete contrast to ‘heavily made up’. Curley’s wife’s death relates to the American dream, seeing as she died telling us her dream and we then realise that, no, she wasn’t evil and manipulative but she was trying to live up to her dream the poor young girl was in an unhappy marriage were there was no love at all and was just used for her womanly features and for her husband’s sexual desires when that not what she is, Curley’s wife is no tool to be used and she certainly didn’t want to be used as one… but when her dream failed she had no other choice. So it is here that we feel sympathy towards Curley’s wife, and makes us understand more about her.