why do you think Steinbeck wrote this description of her? How is irony used?

"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. She was very pretty and simple, and her face was sweet and young. Now her rouged cheeks and her reddened lips made her seem alive and sleeping very lightly. The curls, tiny little sausages, were spread on the hay behind her head, and her lips were parted."

I think Steinbeck lifts the weight away from her. Finally she is no longer Curley's wife, she is no longer his property doomed to haunt the ranch for companionship. All of a sudden she is no longer a temptress but a simple girl real eased from her pain at last.