"The Other Two"

Charles So

English 48B

Feb. 16 2011

Journal for Wharton

Author Quote:

  "She dropped into her low chair by the tea table, and the two visitors, as if drawn by her smile, advanced to receive the cups she held out. She glanced about for Waythorn,, and he took the third cup with a laugh." (843)

Internet Quote:

“Her careful ordering of detail enabled Mrs. Wharton to attain in many of her shorter works a psychological complexity in characterization which would ordinarily be found only in the novel. In her short stories she usually illuminates, rather than resolves, the refractory situations that she subjects to her scrutiny. The characters and events often suggest intonations of the universal and ranges of significance beyond the literal.” (McDowell, Margaret B. Edith Wharton. Boston, Mass.: Twayne Publishers, 1976.)

Summary:
At the end of the story Waythorn is presented with an odd situation as he sits with "The Two Others". Waythorn’s throughout the story has been thinking about his predictament and contemplating the nature of his situation and Alice, and her former husbands. Through this perspective and observation, Waythorn’s sense of himself is revealed and his changing view of Alice and his marriage.

Personal Opinion:
This quote was in the last scene and its description i thought was intriging, because it left you wondering what their conversation would be like. For me, it just had a weird vibe from the whole ex-husbands drinking tea together, the title comes into play at the last scene also. Throughout the story i thought Waythorn was very odd, his mentality and view on society was very radical, "He knew that society has not yet adapted itself to the consequences of divorce, and that till the adaptation takes place every woman who uses the freedom the law accords her must be her own social justification" at that time i presume this way of thinking for a man was not correct. Therefore, Waythorn and his outlook can be looked as a message from Wharton on the matter of divorce and women's rights.