Critical Analysis on portrayal of women and society during Victorian Era

through ‘The Wife’ by Irving.

Our culture has been inherently patriarchal which marginalizes women and this
has influenced the production and experience of literature. Be it the biblical
portrayal of Eve as the origin of atrocities and sins. Even though the wife
reflects distinctly the society which was still under the clutches of patriarchy,
Irving elevates the status of women to a source of moral support. The following
context speaks in volume about how there comes a phase when the husband is
emotionally dependent on his wife.

“Suddenly rising in mental force to be the comforter and support of husband

under misfortune.” When Irving through Geoffrey Crayon points out that a
married man who falls prey to misfortune has more chances of retrieval than a
single man, he proposes how powerful the women are in terms of helping men
break free from their calamities. The only woman present in the story has no
name which showed that perhaps Irving was of the opinion that women were
not worthy of a name which further validates the idea that women had less say
in what went on in their lives. There is a clear cut expression of the Victorian
husband’s perspective but the conflicts of the wife is least focused on. This is
when the title of the story becomes ironic because there is less emphasis on her
outlook. Victorian literature has female characters who are defined by male
norms and patriarchal ideology. Exclusion of women and their perspectives was
not a new thing in those times

“Her life”, said he, shall be like a fairy tale.’ As simple as it may seem, it puts
forth the idea of how the society dictates the requirements of an ideal husband
and prompts him to go to any lengths to achieve that. “He was of a romantic and
somewhat serious cast; she was all life and gladness.” legitimizes how the
Victorian society had its tentacles around the manners, morals and characters of
both genders. Further, it is a direct manifestation of how status, fortune and all
the pleasures it can afford sustained marriage and not love or understanding.
The wife represents all the domestic values, possibilities and warmth which the
husband realizes towards the end. Leslie thinks it will break his wife’s heart to
see all the elegances and refinements fade away; When Geoffrey conflicts with
this while he makes the statement ‘it does not require a palace to be happy with
her” he not only emphasises on the paltriness of Leslie’s thoughts but sends
forth a vital message of how true marriage will withstand adversities only to
come out strong.
The story renders attributes like sublimity to women and condition men to
behave in a certain way. Mutual dependency holds any marriage together and it
becomes the central theme around which the story revolves. Even though
biology determines sex (whether male or female), it is literature through the
influence of culture that dictates gender.