The Other Wife-by Colette Historical Context Essay (950-1100 words

Essay #3: Instructions

Essay #3: Fiction Essay Assignment

Historical Context Essay (950-1100 words)

Historical analysis shows how one or more of a story’s elements (plot, characters, setting, theme, language) relate to the historical time in which the story is set. (If there is a gap between when the story was written and when it was set (for example: in 2003, an author writes a story that’s set during the 1970s), you will also have to think about how the time difference may have influenced the way the story was written.)

Using specific examples from the story AND from AT LEAST FOUR research sources (the story is NOT one of the four sources), write an essay on the following topic

Write Essay based on this : Consider “The Other Wife” as a critique of marriage during the early twentieth century. Consider how the sexist attitudes backfired for the husbands. Reread the last two paragraphs carefully. What is Alice “doubtful” about, and why does she look with “envy” at the other wife. Consider how her expectations of her marriage and herself have changed during the course of the story.

Again, in order to discuss the historical context of a work in an informed way, you will have to read at least four secondary sources (texts that are not the story you’ve chosen itself). Articles, websites, books, and chapters in books are all acceptable, but they must be college-level, academic reading. Wikipedia is not an academic source so only use it for background and NOT one of the required sources.  Notice the kinds of articles used for the sample student essay. Many short, concise, and useful sources can be found through Proquest and The Literary Resources Center both accessed through the Library homepage (databases link). You may also want to do some cross-disciplinary reading from history texts.

Based on your research, write an essay on one of the five topics listed above. To do this, you will need to briefly SUMMARIZE your story, ANALYZE its themes, and DISCUSS how the historical research you did relates to the story’s meaning. Your thesis should make a claim that answers the question asked and connects the story to its historical context and the body of your paper will substantiate that claim. The research you’ve done will be there to INFORM what you’re saying, but you will need to CITE any source you quote or paraphrase. Even if you paraphrase the ideas expressed in your source, you need to give the author credit for those ideas. It is your responsibility to document these sources correctly (see the MLA lecture in this unit). The proof of your research will ALSO be present in your essay’s sophistication and knowledge. Be sure to address the literary elements that illustrate your thesis.

Suggested questions to consider when summarizing your text:

What is the climax of the text? The rising action? The falling action? The resolution?

Who is the protagonist? The antagonist? The foil? The minor characters?

What is the central conflict of the text and how does it change the protagonist?

What point-of-view is the text written in? Is the narrator reliable or unreliable?

What exposition (background info) is given in the text?

Where and when is the story set?

Suggested questions to consider when interpreting your text thematically:

What do you think is the author’s message? What did s/he want his/her reader to feel, believe, or do upon finishing this text? Why do you think so?

How does the author convey this message through repeated words, phrases, or images, including the title and elements in the setting and the characters? language and behavior?

What symbols did you identify in the text and what are they symbolic of?

What do the plot, the fate of the characters, and the outcome of the central conflict imply about the author’s world view, philosophy, or value system? Has your own world view, philosophy, or value system been swayed or challenged? Do you think the author meant for it to be? Why or why not?

Suggested questions to consider when contextualizing your text historically:

What do you know about the author’s background: their nation of origin, the political events and struggles of their time, their family structure, their education and social class, their religion, their moral beliefs, their age and health conditions? How do these (and other) biographical facts influence your reading of their work?

What do you know about the time and place in which the story was written and/or set? What political and social issues and historical trends or landmarks are being raised or reflected in the work? If the time the story is written is different from the time in which it was set, how does this distance impact the work?

The Other Wife

by Colette

“TABLE FOR TWO? This way, Monsieur, Madame, there is still a table next to the window, if Madame and Monsieur would like a view of the bay.”
Alice followed the maitre d’.
“Oh, yes. Come on, Marc, it’ll be like having lunch on a boat on the water . . .”
Her husband caught her by passing his arm under hers. “We’ll be more comfortable over there.”
“There? In the middle of all those people? I’d much rather . . .”
“Alice, please.”
He tightened his grip in such a meaningful way that she turned around. “What’s the matter?”
“Shh . . .” he said softly, looking at her intently, and led her toward the table in the middle.
“What is it, Marc?”
“I’ll tell you, darling. Let me order lunch first. Would you like the shrimp? Or the eggs in aspic?”
“Whatever you like, you know that.”
They smiled at one another, wasting the precious time of an over-worked maitre d’, stricken with a kind of nervous dance, who was standing next to them, perspiring.
“The shrimp,” said Marc. “Then the eggs and bacon. And the cold chicken with a romaine salad. Fromage blanc? The house specialty? We’ll go with the specialty. Two strong coffees. My chauffeur will be having lunch also, we’ll be leaving again at two o’clock. Some cider? No, I don’t trust it . . . Dry champagne.”
He sighed as if he had just moved an armoire, gazed at the colorless midday sea, at the pearly white sky, then at his wife, whom he found lovely in her little Mercury hat with its large, hanging veil.
“You’re looking well, darling. And all this blue water makes your eyes look green, imagine that! And you’ve put on weight since you’ve been traveling . . . It’s nice up to a point, but only up to a point!”
Her firm, round breasts rose proudly as she leaned over the table.
“Why did you keep me from taking that place next to the window?”
Marc Seguy never considered lying. “Because you were about to sit next to someone I know.”
“Someone I don’t know?”
“My ex-wife.”
She couldn’t think of anything to say and opened her blue eyes wider.
“So what, darling? It’ll happen again. It’s not important.”
The words came back to Alice and she asked, in order, the inevitable questions. “Did she see you? Could she see that you saw her? Will you point her out to me?”
“Don’t look now, please, she must be watching us . . . The lady with brown hair, no hat, she must be staying in this hotel. By herself, behind those children in red . . .”
“Yes I see.”
Hidden behind some broad-brimmed beach hats, Alice was able to look at the woman who, fifteen months ago, had still been her husband’s wife.
“Incompatibility,” Marc said. “Oh, I mean . . . total incompatibility! We divorced like well-bred people, almost like friends, quietly, quickly. And then I fell in love with you, and you really wanted to be happy with me. How lucky we are that our happiness doesn’t involve any guilty parties or victims!”
The woman in white, whose smooth, lustrous hair reflected the light from the sea in azure patches, was smoking a cigarette with her eyes half closed. Alice turned back toward her husband, took some shrimp and butter, and ate calmly. After a moment’s silence she asked: “Why didn’t you ever tell me that she had blue eyes, too?”
“Well, I never thought about it!”
He kissed the hand she was extending toward the bread basket and she blushed with pleasure. Dusky and ample, she might have seemed somewhat coarse, but the changeable blue of her eyes and her wavy, golden hair made her look like a frail and sentimental blonde. She vowed overwhelming gratitude to her husband. Immodest without knowing it, everything about her bore the overly conspicuous marks of extreme happiness.
They ate and drank heartily, and each thought the other had forgotten the woman in white. Now and then, however, Alice laughed too loudly, and Marc was careful about his posture, holding his shoulders back, his head up. They waited quite a long time for their coffee, in silence. An incandescent river, the straggled reflection of the invisible sun overhead, shifted slowly across the sea and shone with a blinding brilliance.
“She’s still there, you know,” Alice whispered.
“Is she making you uncomfortable? Would you like to have coffee somewhere else?”
“No, not at all! She’s the one who must be uncomfortable! Besides, she doesn’t exactly seem to be having a wild time, if you could see her . . .”
“I don’t have to. I know that look of hers.”
“Oh, was she like that?”
He exhaled his cigarette smoke through his nostrils and knitted his eyebrows. “Like that? No. To tell you honestly, she wasn’t happy with me.”
“Oh, really now!”
“The way you indulge me is so charming, darling . . . It’s crazy . . . You’re an angel . . . You love me . . . I’m so proud when I see those eyes of yours. Yes, those eyes . . . She . . . I just didn’t know how to make her happy, that’s all. I didn’t know how.”
“She’s just difficult!”
Alice fanned herself irritably, and cast brief glances at the woman in white, who was smoking, her head resting against the back of the cane chair, her eyes closed with an air of satisfied lassitude.
Marc shrugged his shoulders modestly.
“That’s the right word,” he admitted. “What can you do? You have to feel sorry for people who are never satisfied. But we’re satisfied . . . Aren’t we, darling?”
She did not answer. She was looking furtively, and closely, at her husband’s face, ruddy and regular; at his thick hair, threaded here and there with white silk; at his short, well-cared-for hands; and doubtful for the first time, she asked herself, “What more did she want from him?”
And as they were leaving, while Marc was paying the bill and asking for the chauffeur and about the route, she kept looking, with envy and curiosity, at the woman in white, this dissatisfied, this difficult, this superior . . .