Steinbeck rests a great deal of blame for the murder on the victim herself. Her offer to let Lennie touch her hair may be construed as a sexual advance. She even prefaces the offer with a complaint about how she is a lonely woman who dislikes her husband and is dissatisfied with her marriage. Her complaints of loneliness are likely sincere, yet she presents them in a manipulative manner that reduces any sympathy that the reader may have for the character. Curley's Wife clearly believes that she deserves a better life. She considers herself a possible Hollywood starlet stuck in a loveless marriage because she refused what she believes were possible opportunities for greatness. When Lennie kills her, Steinbeck offers a disturbing image. He describes her with more life and vitality as a corpse than he did as a living character; her rouged face and reddened lips giving her the appearance of life even after she is dead. In this manner Steinbeck portrays her as a tremendously false character: her appearance of vitality is entirely separate from her actual self, a masquerade of life that continues even in death. This represents Steinbeck's first concrete praise for Curley's Wife; he writes for the first time that she appears sweet and young, a more commendable character as a corpse than as a living human being. But even in her death she appears a lousy tart,' as Candy calls her, reinforcing the tremendously misogynistic portrayal of this character.