This piece was a little weird to me. It started off really normal, a newlywed couple on their honeymoon, and then developed into something more. I have seen it time and time again with friends that are just starting off in a new relationship. Everything the person they are with does is either adorable or awesome. Then, as time goes on, the same things that were either adorable or awesome before become annoying or bothersome. That is what this story reminded me of. The woman started off with this view of the hand as being strong and masculine. Then as she observed the hand for a period of time, the hand began to transform into this terrible grotesque monster, almost the exact opposite of her initial view of it.
The writer made great use of symbolism during the story. The wife’s view of her husband started off as rather normal. Initially, the wife had nothing but good things to say about her husband, but her views quickly began to change when she noticed her husband’s hand. Initially, she views the hand as strong and masculine, but that changes. In the wife’s’ eyes, the hand begins to take on a more grotesque form, lurching around and reacting to her displeasure with it. I do not believe that the wife actually thinks the hand is alive or that is becoming evil. This is where the writers symbolism comes in. I think that the writer is used symbolism to show the wife falling out of infatuation with her husband. During the initial parts of a relationship, couples generally think everything about their partner is cute or attractive. Over time, the infatuation fades and things that we once saw as cute, become annoying or perhaps terrifying in some cases. The wifes changing view of her husbands hand is symbolic of this change. Since she has only known her husband for a short amount of time, she is uncertain about him. Her eventual view of the hand illustrates how not only her view of her husband changed, but her distrust of their extremely new relationship.
One question I have comes from the questions we had to answer at the end of the story. One of the questions mentioned “why do you think the author mentioned the husband was newly widowed.” My answer was along the lines of since we don’t know the man, and the wife doesn’t know him, using newly widowed adds a certain distrust for the man and how he became windowed. What did everyone else think?
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I thought the author mentioned that the husband was newly widowed because there was something fishy about him that the wife did not know. So to me, "the hand" symbolizes the fear the wife was holding in her since she does not know her husband very well.
ReplyDeleteGreat analysis. Your interpretation of the bride's distrust was really interesting. I personally thought the the author mentioned that the man was recently widowed to further develop the idea that the two were rushing into a new relationship. The author, I think, wanted to clearly state that these two characters were hasty in their marriage, almost naive.
ReplyDeleteWell, his hand did go into the murderous strangler bit pretty easily, didn't it? I think it's clear that HE KILLED HIS WIFE! Meh, maybe not, but it was a tidbit dangled in front of us, wasn't it?
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, I like your view of the story. The narrator seems to have realized only weeks too late that her husband may not be what she thought. Oops.
I believe the mention of him being widowed help explain how this woman could have fallen for him due to his sad story. Sometimes people fall for someone due to their story and then, as this woman did, soon realize that they dont even know each other. I really dont think it was just his hands, she had many more issues and the hand just symbolized a much bigger problem.
ReplyDeleteI think that she mentioned the husband being newly widowed because it shows how they rushed into the relationship. To me is sounds like this man wanted to replace his old wife and wanted to be married and didn't care to whom.
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