Just before Lennie inadvertently kills Curley's wife, they both discuss their own dreams. Curley's wife laments that she might have been a famous and successful actress if her mother would have let her. Lennie, of course, shares his own story about the rabbits and the farm. They both go back and forth with their respective hopes. Curley's wife tries to dominate the conversation because she wants sympathy. She wants someone to hear about her missed opportunities. After she is killed, the narrator describes her lifeless body. With this description, one can see how Steinbeck suggests the loss of the American Dream. In this description, it shows how Curley's wife had missed her opportunity in life and, in the end, how she could no longer seek sympathy or understanding for that loss:
Curley’s wife lay with a half-covering of yellow hay. And the meanness and the plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face.
The "plannings" symbolize her past hopes and the "discontent" and "aches" symbolize her regret.
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