Jason Marquez
October 31, 2012
CBI Sr. English, Q1 “The Wife’s Story” is a tale by Ursula K. Le Guin is a very surprising science fiction story that reverses the werewolf idea. A wolf turns into a man and scares the living daylights out of his wolf wife and wolf children. What makes this story interesting is that Le Guin tricks us, throughout much of the story, into believing that the tale is about humans. Le Guin point was to make the whole story ironic because the reader expects the husband to be a husband and for everybody to be normal but then the reader should soon realize that the family is a family of wolves and that the husband is a werewolf. The story takes a view of how wolves would see a werewolf. I believe Le Guin chose to write this story with a first person narrator because it is more effective to the reader. In the first paragraph of The Wife’s Story says, “I don’t believe it happened. I saw it happen but it isn’t true. It can’t be. He was always gentle”. This shows the wife’s emotions after she discovers her husband is a werewolf. She is confused and still feels everything is unreal. Le Guin’s choice of writing this story in a first person narrative keeps the reader interested and motivated to keep reading. The narrator’s voice in The Wife’s Story affects how the reader responds to the story because of the tone the narrator uses telling her experience discovering her husband’s secret. In this story, Le Guin helps the reader relate to the wife and how she was married to a werewolf without knowing it.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
5. Robert lost his wife a few years back. The narrator’s wife and Robert were also very close. The narrator never met Robert and when he came over their house for the first time, he didn’t accept Robert. He had no sympathy for Robert because he was blind. Whenever the wife went to bed, he took over hosting to Robert and tried to give Robert descriptions of the Cathedrals.…
- 499 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
They became very close and told each other every aspect about their lives. Robert eventually married a woman by the name of Beulah who then died of cancer. Robert was visiting his wife’s relatives in Connecticut and was going to visit the narrator’s wife and spend the night. This made the Narrator very uneasy. He mentioned that blind people bothered him and he only saw them in movies. He stated, “The blind moved slowly and never laughed.” The Narrator did not look forward to Robert visiting but he had no choice. Robert came by train and the Narrator’s wife picked him up. When he arrived at the house he met the Narrator. They then had drinks followed by dinner. After dinner they all gathered around the TV. The Narrators wife went upstairs to put on her robe. The Narrator then offered Robert some marijuana and he accepted. At this time the wife returned and smoked with them, soon after she fell asleep. The Narrator and Robert started watching a show on Cathedrals. Robert asked the Narrator to describe to him what a Cathedral looked like. Unfortunately, he could not. The Narrator tried to explain it but was at a loss of words.…
- 448 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Welch also paints a portrait of human behavior as he explores the relationship between women in the polygamous marriage of Rides-at-the-door. His first wife, Double Strike Woman, convinces Rides-at-the-door that she needs help around the lodge. Although she is glad he had taken Striped Face for his second wife, she felt strange the first time he had gone with Striped Face to her smaller…
- 2029 Words
- 9 Pages
Powerful Essays -
Although many authors write mysteries, few of them are as successful as author James Patterson. In fact, the New York Times calls him, “one of America's most influential authors”. The New York Times may have gotten it’s inspiration for this quote from one of James Patterson’s books, The Big Bad Wolf. James Patterson’s 2003 mystery novel, The Big Bad Wolf, allows Alex Cross, an almost psychic FBI agent, to show his abilities to get into the mind of a criminal and predict their next move. Alex Cross Is using his psychic mind to try and outsmart a notorious criminal known as The Wolf. The whole Federal Bureau of Investigation is working tirelessly to capture The Wolf before he can kidnap any more people for his white sex slave business. The Big…
- 1188 Words
- 5 Pages
Powerful Essays -
This essay will explain about the narrative voice that is used in novels and how it misleads or mystifies the reader. Narrative voice defines the tone of the narrator stating their point of view. It presents the reader the situation which causes the narrator to have control over the reader’s mood. For example in the novel Perfume: the story of a murder by Patrick Suskind the author created a third person omniscient point of view. Therefore it allows the reader to know multiple characters feelings and thoughts.…
- 308 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
The narrator having trouble to entertain Robert. He does not know what he should do or say. Jealous of the former relationship between his wife and Robert, he is suspicious. Robert and the wife of the narrator has been exchanging audiotapes for almost a decade. The audiotapes that Robert and the narrator’s wife send back and forth to each other represent the kind of understanding and compassion that has nothing to do with sight.…
- 603 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
The purpose of this short story is to make the reader feel indignant and angry with the husband and compassion and sympathy for the wife. Brush uses diction and imagery to invoke these emotions in the reader.…
- 408 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
In Gail Godwin’s short story, A Sorrowful Woman, an unnamed woman withdraws herself from her family due to her belief of having an overwhelming life. Godwin’s protagonist in the short story is unhappy with her current role as a housewife and seeks to explore different roles, but has a hard time coping when faced with making more engaging decisions when they are presented to her. The wife slowly steps out of her role in the family until they are completely shut out of her life. The only thing the wife seems to want in A Sorrowful Woman is the ultimate escape from what she finds unbearable, life confined by roles related to her gender. Godwin uses different elements to elaborate the theme throughout the short story by involving changes in setting, the aspect of fairy tales and the characters’ interactions with one another. The overall theme of A Sorrowful Woman is the meaning of self-discovery and how Godwin’s protagonist attempts to find herself through the tensions of being a mother and wife.…
- 1253 Words
- 6 Pages
Better Essays -
While Robert was on his way to visit them, the narrator and his wife were talking about what to do when Robert gets here and that wife was telling the narrator to be nice when Robert gets to the house. The narrator told his wife that he would take him Bowling and the wife analyzed the narrator and stated “If you love me,” she said “you can do this for me. If you don’t love me, okay. But if you had a friend, any friend, and the friend came to visit, I’d make him feel comfortable”(page 105). This shows that the narrator wife wants him to do something for her and that when the blind man gets be nice and that she would welcome his friends if they came over she would show them a good time. Also when Robert finally came to the house Robert welcomed him to his home and led him a hand with his bags and takes his hand and shows him around the house by describing it. Later then everybody sat down and he offered Robert a drink and also he turned on the TV for Robert to listen to. The narrator loves his wife and he knows that Robert and hers had friendship in the past made the narrator jealous before Robert arrived at the house, but he decided to be nice and show him a good time to make his wife…
- 1310 Words
- 6 Pages
Better Essays -
In addition to his uneasiness with the blind, the narrator is uncomfortable with his wife’s relationship with the blind man. The wife and Robert, the blind man, have maintained a close relationship via tape recordings mailed back and forth, and the narrator finds this unsettling. Despite the narrator’s feelings about the visit, Robert shows up, and the three of them dine together, and Robert and the narrator get to know each other.…
- 652 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
In the opening of this story, the narrator is closed-minded to the idea of a blind man entering his home. “A blind man in my house is not something I looked forward to” (1). It is through his resistance that we are introduced to his insecurities, and the layer of doubt that overcomes him. He is a simple man who lives a simple life. He loves his wife, but is not even sure what the love he has with her entails. His wife is a very expressive woman, using poetry to describe feeling and emotion. He is dismissive of her talent and more obviously, of her. “I can remember I didn’t think much of the poem. Of course, I didn’t tell her that... something to read” (1). They’re lack of communication is what draws the woman even closer to the blind man. She shares an intimate and emotional bond with him that she has never been able to establish with the narrator.…
- 810 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The presentation of Curley's wife is an interesting topic and her place as the only woman the reader meets in the novella puts her in a unique position. John introduced us to a character called Curley's wife, she plays a complex and misfit character as she got so many different sides to her, as sometimes the reader feels sympathetic and unsympathetic about her. John Steinbeck's novel of Mice and Men is an example of how the reader's perception of a character can change without the character actually changing.…
- 397 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Monsters have truly captivated me for multiple reasons. Some of the reasons being that they are supernatural.…
- 96 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
Both authors have used situational irony in their texts to lead the readers to an unexpected ending and to display the innocence and or, guilt. ‘The Lottery’ by Shirley Jackson used situational irony to show the guilty mother and father in the text, however Ursula Le Guin has used situational Irony in ‘The Wife’s Story’ to position the readers into an innocent mind frame of the wolves. In ‘The Lottery’, Shirley Jackson used situational irony to manipulate the audience’s thoughts on the town’s customs. First portraying the lottery game as an innocent family tradition, then shocking the audience when the situational irony is used and it shows the reverse in the story. With the assistance of this technique, Shirley Jackson has now displayed a terrible competition of where stoning family members helps grow the crops. Once Tessie Hutchinson saw that her father had won the lottery she said ‘’’I tell you it wasn’t fair. You didn’t give him enough time to choose. Everybody saw that.’’’ Tessie’s words cause the audience to gain on Tessie’s innocence and also the audience thinks differently about the lottery game and why Tessie was not happy with winning. The situational irony causes the audience to contemplate the reasons why Tessie is gloomy with winning.…
- 726 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
The story and its description can be perceived as a critique of our own society, because it reflects the erroneous and unjust actions witnessed in our cities, colonies and countries. Approximately in the middle of the narration before the curse of Omelas is described Le Guin implies this criticism when is said: “Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing.” With these words the author asks if the readers believe in that “fairytale” city to let us know that she knows that we are thinking of the story as a complete fantasy, but also this quote gives us a foreshadow that the narration is going to take a drastic turn and some readers may also think to discover that what is going to happen next is going to be more credible, and it could amazingly be something a reader in the society we live on can relate to. Indeed, it helped connect with the story because it can be found similarities with the plot of the short story and throughout our history leaders that have abused of their powers to get…
- 516 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays