Post #6: Edith Wharton and Women

In my reading of Edith Wharton's "The Other Two," I found myself laughing at the character of Waythorn. Personally, I had found it interesting that he stated that he"discounted" Alice's previous husbands (831). But then I also remembered the setting of the story, the unfamiliarity and discomfort with divorce. And reading further, finding that Waythorn was a Wall Street man, it only seemed acceptable that he explained and saw his wife's situation in the terms of a business. It was almost expected that he would not be involved with her ex-husbands and their circles.

I had also found the character of Alice to be rather interesting. At the beginning, in Waythorn almost seems to put her on a pedastool. "Her composure was restful to him; it acted as ballast to his somewhat unstable sensibilities ... her very step would prognosticate recovery" (831). Here Waythorn acknowledges the great composure which Alice holds. Yet one can see later in the story that she does this only when Waythorn is present, almost in an act to control the setting in which her husband sees her. I try not to go against my own sex, but when reading about Alice, I could immediately sense that there was something off about her. Waythorn had simply assumed that both of her divorces were enacted due to the acts of her husbands. I was happy to see that his opinion had also later changed. "Shamefacedly, in direct ways, he had been finding out about Haskett; and all that he had learned was favorable ... His next days were thus haunted, and he determined to try to lay the ghosts by conjuring them up in his wife's presence" (839). Waythorn begins to realize that his mere assumptions may not have been correct. In doing so, he decided to give Haskett the benefit of the doubt, finding it acceptable that he had done whatever possible to be near his daughter, and insisting that Waythorn help in persuading Alice on manners concerning the child. It was as if she had done whatever possible to ensure that she was in the right, that her current husband hold her in that regard.