Why doesn't the author give Curley's wife a name?

Steinbeck was planning to adapt his novella into a stage play at the time he was working on the book manuscript. He collaborated on the stage version with playwright George Kaufman, and it was produced with great success in New York in 1937, the same year the book came out. This explains why the novella has some of the same characteristics as a play. Although it is a story about agriculture and the lives of farm workers, the settings are few and are all indoors, except for the opening scene by the river and the closing scene in the same location. The main set is the bunkhouse. Another important set is the barn where Lennie kills Curley's wife. Anything that happens outside on the ranch happens offstages and is represented with sound effects, such as horses stomping and horseshoes ringing. It is obvious that Steinbeck was visualizing his play while he was writing his novella.

It can be observed that the characters are frequently introducing themselves to others or introducing other characters to each other. They also call each other by name more frequently than would normally happen in such a milieu. This name-calling is common in stage plays, especially in the opening scenes, and it usually seems awkward and artificial. In Of Mice and Men is for the benefit of the reader and for the future theater audience; and it is especially important because the characters in Steinbeck's story are all men, all farm workers, and all dressed in work clothes--with one exception.

The only exception is the one female character who is only referred to as "Curley's wife." This character isn't given a name because she doesn't need one in order to be identified or distinguished from the other characters. No doubt Steinbeck was annoyed by the tedious business of making up names and having all the men pointedly and repeatedly calling each other by these names. He even has Slim and Candy commenting on Lennie's last name of Small, which is supposedly funny because Lennie is so big.

Steinbeck tries to differentiate the male characters. Lennie is big and George is small. Lennie is dumb and George is smart. Curley is small and hostile. Slim is tall. Crooks stands out because he is the only black man on the ranch. Candy has lost one hand and is handicapped in his actions. Candy is a friendly and kindly man, while Carlson is cold and mean. But they still have to have names, and the names have to be repeated so that the reader--and especially the future theater audience--will remember them when they are offstage but are being referred to onstage. This differentiation of characters must have been one of Steinbeck's biggest concerns, and he was probably quite happy not to have to think up yet another name for Curley's wife.