The Other Two

Sing Ruby Siu
English 48B
February 20, 2009
Journal #14 Edith Wharton

QUOTE:
“Waythorn was an idealist. He always refused to recognize unpleasant contingencies till he found out himself confronted with them, and then he saw them followed by a spectral train of consequence” (839).

SUMMARY:
In Edith Wharton’s story “The Other Two,” Waythorn engaged himself in an intense analysis and contemplation about his wife, Alice, who had two marriage prior to the one now. Despite how controversial Alice’s marital history was, Waythorn at first regarded his wife as an adorable and perfect one. But in the inevitable meetings with her ex-husbands, Waythorn gradually formed a suspicious attitude for Alice. Upon realizing and understanding more about her past marriages, he saw his wife’s adaptability to be artificial and negative. In the above quote, it is the narration that describes how the characteristics of Waythorn had yielded this kind of realization at the end.

RESPONSE:

The above quote definitely embodies certain sarcastic irony. Wharton put the characteristics of Waythorn as an “idealist,” which is an exaggeration, or even the opposite way of what he was originally. As a man who bustled around the cities in high-class society, I very agree with the view that Waythorn saw “his home as his sanctuary” (“Isolation”). It was this attitude that he held encouraged a yearning for idealistic wife and home, and he wished he could eternally see the preserved face of his properties. Although we can see that he pampered Alice kindly, deep in his heart he took it for granted that he was the sole administrator of her. He, in the first place, had regarded Alice to be part of his possessorship and he meant to exercise control over her present self. This is obvious as whenever he came home, he used to ask a few questions to check and reassure his control over his properties.

As Waythorn successively obsessed himself with the idealistic image “produced” by Alice and was satisfactory, he neglected the artificiality and the mechanics of these amazing images. Firstly, he had obliterated Alice’s past and experience as part of her existence. Although he considered Alice as a smart and adaptable woman, he was not willing to attribute her goodness to the result of past marriages and her personal intelligence. In this case, even he noticed people saying the potential problem brought by Alice’s past marriages, his stubborn and eager mind wished to hide the fact to himself. Secondly, he was more willing to accept his own interpretation that his wife had suffered a lot in the past marriages, he was the savior to his wife’s life, and this is why Alice treated him so nice now. Throughout the story, Waythorn gradually discovered Alice’s “inanimate” past coming alive. His perception towards her changed, but he seemed to express an awful disappointment, rather than an acceptance or indifference. In fact, Alice only chose to present her different image and characteristics in front of different people, but Waythorn was too reluctant to take Alice’s past into account.

Works Cited

"Isolation Versus Community in Edith Wharton's "The Other Two" and Robert Frost's "Mending Wall." - Associated Content." Associated Content - associatedcontent.com. 20 Feb. 2009 .