What Story Does Curley Makeup About His Hand

This is partly about a classic novel, only more than that, it's about a time I decided to article of clothing a glove fulla Vaseline.

In John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, there'due south an antagonist, a existent asshole. His name's Curley, and he'south introduced wearing a glove on his left paw and high-heeled boots, the type of boots designed for sitting on a horse and telling OTHER people what to do.

Hither's a chat between two characters, George and Processed:

"You seen that glove on [Curley's] left manus?"
"Yeah, I seen information technology."
"Well, that glove'southward fulla Vaseline."
"Vaseline? What the hell for?"
"Well, I tell ya what--Curley says he'due south keepin' that manus soft for his wife."
George studied the cards absorbedly. "That'southward a dirty matter to tell around," he said.

Information technology WAS a muddy thing to tell around. And information technology disturbed a immature Pete. We're reading this classic novel in English course, consummate with its thematic yadda-yadda, it's pastoral blah-diddy-blah. And so we're thrown into this Clive Barker shit.

Granted, I was immature the get-go time I read this book. I just knew the barest rudiments of sexual congress, and none of these were first hand. Er, expect. All of them were first paw. Any. You know what I mean. I wasn't exactly experienced at sex, simply I was into the stage where you suspect something similar a glove stuffed with lube is nearly sexual activity, even if you're non sure how.

Now that I'm Quondam Pete, the glove still doesn't make sense. I idea I'd sympathise when I was older. Just like nigh grown-upward things ("films", vino, the indelible popularity of Bob Dylan) I never got it.

Later exhaustive internetting didn't get me whatever answers, I decided at that place was only one thing for it. I'd take to give it a whirl.

Putting On The Glove Fulla

Filling a glove with Vaseline is not an piece of cake job. It'due south like trying to fill a party balloon with gel deodorant. Or trying to fill my caput with knowledge most effigy skating. The openings and materials involved just don't work well together.

Which is why I gave up on filling the glove, coated my hand in Vaseline, and jammed it in.

The sensation of putting on a glove fulla Vaseline is nearly what you'd look. If you expected information technology to be super disgusting and super warm.

The sensation of putting on a glove fulla Vaseline is virtually what yous'd expect. If you lot expected information technology to be super icky and super warm.

Vaseline is weird shit. It'south not like lotion where it feels like it'll absorb into your peel. It's more like peanut butter where you feel the grease volition follow you around forever. It exists in this strange land somewhere betwixt corrective production and mechanical lubricant. The idea of covering yourself in it is like spraying a quick shot of WD40 in your mouth before a date.

Oh, and information technology's warm. WAY warm. I can't express that enough. My paw was cooking in that glove.

The beginning time I wore the glove, I was but doing crap effectually the house. Nothing to shout most. It was a few hours, and afterward, no noticeable difference in softness, plushness, and it didn't cause me to experience any other Curley-esque feelings, like the need to dial a really large guy or accuse people of sleeping with my wife.

Uses For Vaseline

In the connected search for answers regarding Curley'south glove, I didn't discover anyone using Vaseline similar Curley, but I DID find some pretty interesting uses for Vaseline.

It turns out Vaseline is an NFL common cold-weather secret. Want to play in a freezing game while still showing off the guns? Slap on some Vaseline. It's a coating that keeps y'all warm. Ish.

Also, if you're painting, Vaseline makes a good protective layer for crap you don't desire to get pigment on, like door hardware that's tough to remove. Or your face up.

Perhaps most interesting, Robert Chesebrough, the inventor of Vaseline, was the total embodiment of a snake oil salesman. He'd go from town to town, burn down himself with fire or acid, and utilise Vaseline to the wounds. He also ate a spoonful of the stuff every day. And, once when he was ill, he had a nurse cover him from caput to toe in Vaseline. He did not go a supervillain and chase downward that accursed Spider-Homo. He recovered from his disease and lived to the age of 96.

And considering it always comes back to Tyra, Tyra Banks claimed that Vaseline was her biggest dazzler clandestine, and she gave abroad jars to screaming fans on her talk show. This hugger-mugger has been explored past a large number of internet people with highly mixed results.

Highfalutin Theories

Although there was some interesting stuff out at that place, including the nightmare fuel of EATING Vaseline, there wasn't a lot of concrete prove every bit to the "why" behind Curley's glove. But there are some literary-type theories, stuff related directly to the volume. I thought the most useful thing I could do here would be to nowadays some of the more pop theories and then nowadays my findings.

The Physical Theory

Curley is doing exactly what's stated, keeping his paw soft for his woman, either at the woman's asking or because it'due south Curley's preference. The all-time bear witness in favor of this theory is that the novel makes it clear that Curley's wife is out of his league, and he'due south doing annihilation and everything to stay together. Sort of like the older dude who pretends he likes Ed Sheeran to stay with his younger girlfriend. The evidence confronting, Curley'southward married woman says, "He ain't never home. I got nobody to talk to, I got nobody to be with." Which makes me retrieve he peradventure doesn't care all that much, is kind of a jerk, and why would a jerk care about the softness of his hand in regards to his married woman?

The Exam

My partner did not find a discernible divergence in the softness of my hand. Granted, I'k not a ranch hand, but the book goes out of the way to point out that Curley's non exactly a working stiff either.

If you're interested in repulsing your partner a fiddling, explain to them that yous've worn a glove fulla Vaseline and would like them to experience. For enquiry purposes. Or, tell them about this experiment, and tell them you're going to claim, when asked, that the glove is there and filled with Vaseline to "keep it soft. For my woman." If yous miss the await of disgust in your partner'south eye, this is the way to go.

The Rumor Mill Theory

The glove is not fulla Vaseline, and this is a rumor started by the other workers. Entirely possible, but a very tedious option. Really just serves to betoken out that Curley is a weirdo wiggle, which is pretty thoroughly established in the book. Nobody seems to take a problem calling Curley an asshole outright, so information technology strikes me as a little odd that they'd make upward this fairy tale.

The Exam

On one paw (HA!) wearing a single glove definitely gets you looks here and there. One glove, it'southward a source of curiosity. But non e'er.

I wore the glove to the airport. I should clarify, I didn't wear information technology through airport security. I didn't think I'd be able to explain this unless there was someone on staff who'd taken freshman English language recently. Plus, LitReactor won't give me press credentials. I could really use a hat with a card in it that says PRESS, if anyone'due south listening. Might go me out of a jam here and in that location.

Once I got through security, a lady backside the Borderland counter watched me take out a small jar of Vaseline and coat my entire hand before applying a leather glove over the top. She watched this entire process with definite interest, but she didn't say a word.

Yet, nobody on the flight seemed to discover my glove. This could exist because the person seated next to me took out of her bag the largest pill organizer I've ever seen. Information technology looked like she'd chopped the elevation part off a tool box, the sectioned office where yous can put little screws and washers and crap like that. So my glove, which wasn't immediately, obviously full of Vaseline, was probably nowhere near the weirdest thing going on during that flight.

The Spousal Abuse Theory

I've as well read theories that Curley beats his wife, and somehow keeping his manus soft makes sure he doesn't damage her in some way. This theory has the to the lowest degree merit, if you inquire me, and its proponents don't seem to know a lot virtually the non-existent relationship betwixt the hurting of being punched and the softness of the puncher's skin. Likewise, I don't see a lot of support for the theory that Curley is beating his wife. This theory only comes up oft enough I felt compelled to mention it.

The Exam

I punched a thing. I don't know how soft and thick your skin has to be to provide improve absorber for punching, but I imagine hands that luscious could be put into a prayer position under your caput and provide a really dandy pillow.

My Theories

I'k not in love with whatever of these online, English paper theories. None of them actually explicate the glove, the Vaseline, or the fulla.

Let me tell y'all my theories:

The Reality Theory

The glove is based on something in reality. It's such an oddity that I don't know why Steinbeck would just cram it in in that location if information technology wasn't something that he encountered and it stuck out in HIS heed. Indeed, a proficient chunk of the novel is based in truthful-life shit. In 1937, Steinbeck told a New York Times reporter:

Lennie was a real person. He's in an insane aviary in California correct at present. I worked aslope him for many weeks. He didn't kill a daughter. He killed a ranch foreman. Got sore because the dominate had fired his pal and stuck a pitchfork right through his tum. I hate to tell you how many times I saw him do it. Nosotros couldn't terminate him until information technology was too tardily.

If Lennie was real, stands to reason Curley's glove fulla Vaseline could be real besides.

The Exam

Well...I tin can't notice a lot of people doing this online. Which WOULD brand information technology pretty eccentric and strange, something that would stick in your head. Information technology's stuck in my head since eighth class. I gauge there's something to it.

The Revulsion Theory

Steinbeck wanted to make Curley repulsive in some visceral way, and this is what he came upwards with. Points to Steinbeck if this is the case. He manages to brand Curly creepy and fucked up in a way that'due south permissible in middle school classrooms. No mean feat.

The Examination

Wearing the glove was absolutely disgusting. I dreaded putting it on every time. The glove got heavy, and it felt well-nigh alive somehow.

Too, I took my glove off when I visited a middle school for work. As difficult as this would exist to explicate to a TSA agent, I felt a middle school administrator would be, rightly, even more than suspicious. It'southward just revolting as an thought, and it's revolting in practice. While we alive in a globe that's by and large almost avoiding judgment for how people have dressed themselves, information technology just seems that a glove fulla Vaseline says something near a person. And it'south non good.

A+, Steinbeck.

The Biggest Problem

Okay, the biggest trouble is that it's a glove fulla Vaseline. Nuff said.

The other problem, book-wise, is that Steinbeck's no Chekov. If y'all hibernate a pistol in the first act, that pistol better re-emerge subsequently. Likewise, you requite me a glove total of Vaseline, that glove and its Vaseline better be important later on.

In Of Mice and Men, it's totally not. I re-read the volume. Curley's mitt gets crushed by Lennie, merely it's non explicitly stated which hand. Which seems similar a huge missed opportunity. What better thing to do with this baby-ed hand than beat it until bones crack through skin?

But that doesn't happen. No clarification of Lennie squeezing the be-glove-ed hand, Vaseline oozing out at the wrist. No dramatic removal of the Vaseline glove to bear witness the gore underneath. Cipher.

We don't become a scene of Curley touching his wife either. In fact, there are only ii people nosotros run across touch Curley's married woman: Lennie, when he breaks her neck, and Slim, who touches her face afterward she dies. Curley never really touches his wife.

We don't get an action movie line when Curley discovers his expressionless wife: "The glove's off now, y'all bastard!" and a dramatic flinging away of the soggy glove.

We don't encounter Curley jerking off with his soft hand. I don't mean to be crass about it, but that'd tie upwardly the mystery, no?

We don't get anything!

I daresay a glove fulla Vaseline is such an engaging, interesting object that it deserved a little more.

You dropped the ball, Steinbeck. Probably considering it was coated in petroleum jelly.

In The End

I learned nothing from my glove fulla Vaseline. Other than people detect information technology disgusting and a terrible thought. Universally. Not i person I talked to about this said, "Hmm. Interesting. I remember that'southward a Keen idea! I wish I had as many adept ideas as you, but I'd settle for only your skillful looks."

We may never know. There might not ever be an answer. Which is a shame.

But the good news is, from now on, whenever someone asks me about having dejeuner with anyone, living or dead, I know who I'm picking and what I'grand going to ask. Steinbeck, you got some splainin' to do.

Source: https://litreactor.com/columns/of-mice-men-and-gloves-fulla-vaseline

Posted by: engelhardtbusert.blogspot.com

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