Revise this so please? I think its okay,... but -- LiveWire Teen Forums

Putting other people down seems to be a natural human defense to make someone feel better about themselves by hurting others. Steinbeck displays this multiple times through his story on quite a few different characters. These 'lucky' people in the story are Crooks, Lennie and Candy. Curley's wife targets these three people and no one else on the ranch. This is due to the chain of command on the ranch, everyone below Curley's wife is taunted by her. Crooks constantly receives some reminder of where he stands on the ranch in amount of control and power. In that time however, women were given no rights, and were considered as minorities along with the characters in the story below Curley's wife. In my opinion, Curley's wife does this to feel better about herself by seeing others hurt knowing that she has some power over a few people.
Curley's wife's main target is Crooks due to legal segregation on California. When the men are in Crooks room, Lennie and Candy allow Crooks to be himself with no constant reminder threat by being looked down on by others. However, that changes when Curley's wife enters the picture. Like to that of a movie where she is the villain, reminding the daydream dreamer where and who they are. Poisonous enough to make him feel smaller than an ant, Curley's wife attacks Crooks worse by saying she could get him lynched. In the process of remarks and threats thought the chapter in the novella, she also using scurrilous language to add to the insult and overall effect of belittle Crooks. In my belief, Steinbeck wanted readers of his novella to disregard sympathy for her loneliness by how cruel she can be towards other people considered to be below her.
In the first few pages of the story you can tell that there is something wrong with Lennie, because he is drinking dirty pond water like an elephant. We soon find out that Lennie has some sort of mental comprehension disorder, later on in the novella which allows Curley's wife to be kinder to him then the other two. This has an advantage because Lennie either does not know how to fight for himself or he does not want to. He does not seem to know his own strength when he gets angered which may be why people tend to be nicer to him, or steer clear of Lennie altogether.
Due to Candy's condition being crippled with only his left hand, he falls susceptible to her wrath. Taking in consideration of his age he is also a victim of her criticism and libelous remarks.
Candy's age and disability may be a result on why he is targeted more then Lennie. Both factors seem to lead to why he is verbally abused by Curley's wife more often. Yet in Crooks' room when he is getting attacked by her, he tries to stand up for Crooks by telling her that she has no right to be in a 'colored man's room' and tells her to leave.
Curley's wife acts the way she does because she wants attention and to feel better about herself for getting her own self stuck in the middle of nowhere. So she takes it out on people she can not get in trouble for due to the hierarchy on the ranch. What she does in my opinion is wrong, even for that time period, yet ways have not much changed to today. We still decide to put others down and it is a defense. Are we all villains in life at one point or another in our lives that we strive to see others hurt when we are hurting?

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