Literary Element/Thematic Analysis: As I stated before I saw a lot of symbolism to the hand in the story. The comparison it to animal features and how it was bigger than her whole body. She was disgusted to know what she was married to. As she stated "And I've kissed that hand... How horrible! Haven’t I ever looked at it?" The whole time they were in the bed together just sleeping. In this story she just was caught up in the moment and not focusing on there relationships but just his beauty. "To meet a handsome, blond young man, recently widowed good at tennis and rowing, to marry him a month later."
Question: Was the husband dead the whole time? He wasn't doing anything through out the whole story.
This story does have a lot of symbolism and the hand could mean several things depending on your perception. I can see your point that she is so naïve and young that she was attracted more on the physical feature instead of what it really means to be married. Can look nice, but lots of hard work and emotions go behind the scene to make the marriage work.
ReplyDeleteShe's been married three times??? Where did I miss that??? But yes, I agree with you that this woman has not been with this man long enough to actually know the real him besides his physical appearance and the things he's good at. She has yet to find out with marriage that has tied her down. There are a lot of different interpretations that can also be taken upon "the hand" though.
ReplyDeleteThis story was quite confusing for me and there are several different perceptions that can be made about this story, which was stated above. I don’t believe the husband was dead at all; maybe the description of the hand was how she felt towards him. However, I also got a feeling that he was abusive
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question, I don't think he was dead, just sleeping. But I definitely agree that the wife is focusing too much on physical features. We don't know much about the husband except for the physical features she describes, and that his monstrous hand repulses her. I think the hand represents his character flaws. Maybe he's *heavy-handed*, because I can't imagine her getting that worked up over a literal hand.
ReplyDelete