What insight do we get into Curley's wife's way of life? Do you have newfound sympathy for her?

From the beginning it was his intention to have her killed by Lennie.

Explanation:

. From the beginning it was his intention to have her killed by Lennie. Lennie has to do something terrible and unforgivable in order for George to decide to shoot him. This is what the story is а bout: a man kills his best friend out of compassion. Naturally we feel sorry for Curley's wife--but Steinbeck doesn't want us to feel too sorry for her because that would make us feel less sorry for Lennie as well as for George. Steinbeck inserted that memorable scene in which the girl frightens and humiliates Crooks in order to make her seem somewhat less sympathetic. Otherwise she is just an unfortunate, unhappy, very young girl who is an innocent victim of Curley, Lennie, and an underprivileged background. Steinbeck was trying to make the girl seem like a real person, trying to make her sympathetic but not too sympathetic, cruel but not too cruel, immoral but not too immoral. He did not want her to steal the spotlight from Lennie. If we feel too sorry for Curley's wife when she is killed, then we won't feel sufficiently sorry for Lennie when he gets killed; we would feel that he got just what he deserved. That would spoil Steinbeck's great dramatic ending, which was what he was aiming for from the time he wrote the first sentence of his book. Of Mice and Men is George and Lennie's story.