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Short essay about the Husband Stitch short story...

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Interpretation of Literature The Husband Stitch In the short story The Husband Stitch, by Carmen Maria Machado, we are introduced to the main protagonist, a woman who has lived her life with a green ribbon tightly tied around her neck. Throughout the story, Machado heightens our curiosity by demonstrating the husband testing her as he continuously tries to remove her ribbon. All through the story, the narrator weaves urban legends and fairytales into the story that indirectly correlate to events occurring in her life at the time. Privacy and the reassurance of the woman being one or whole are emulated by the green ribbon, while the urban legends and fairytales allude to events that she is encountering at the time. The green ribbon reassures and protects the woman. As the protagonist and her husband share an intimate moment, it is soon ruined as the husband sneakily runs his hands down her neck and entangles his hands in the loops of her ribbon. The woman has expressed time and time again that she does not want to remove it, and she does not want him to touch it either. During this event, her husband lashes out and claims," 'I have given you everything you have ever asked for, I say. Am I not allowed this one thing? I want to know. The woman responds with, 'You think you want to know, I say, but you do not. The argument ends with the man saying, 'Why do you want to hide it from me? And the woman says, 'I am not hiding it. It is not yours" (Machado, 14). The woman sticks her ground and stands up for herself when she verbalizes that the ribbon "is not yours." By saying this, she is trying to get her husband to respect her privacy. Machado displays not only in this dialog but throughout the story that men do not respect that women are entitled to privacy. Not even just women, but also men. What someone does not want to share, they do not have to, no matter if he or she is married. At the end of the short story, Machado decides that the woman will make an unexpected jester for her husband to remove her ribbon. The husband slowly, but excitedly unties the final loop, and he is unsure what he will see. As the woman's head tips backward off of her neck and roll off of the bed, she narrates, "I feel as lonely as I have ever been" (Machado 21). The woman has worn the green ribbon tightly secured around her neck since the day she was born; she informs us at the beginning of the story. Due to this, the ribbon has made her feel whole. It has made her who she is, a daughter, a woman, and a mother. Now that it has been removed for the selfish purpose of her husband finally respecting her privacy, she no longer feels like she is whole. She has transformed into someone she does not even know. She is lonely and lost. Indirect connections to the woman's life are embedded in the urban legends and fairytales shared. At the beginning of the story, the protagonist confides in us that she enjoys telling stories. Throughout this story, she shares various urban

legends and fairytales. The third urban legend she shares with us is about a husband and wife who were killed one day, and their infant daughter was never found. When addressing the missing infant, the narrator says, "Many years later, she was said to be seen resting in the rushes along a riverbank, suckling two wolf cubs. I like to imagine that they came from her body, the lineage of wolves tainted human just the once. They certainly bloodied her breasts, but she did not mind because they were hers and only hers" (Machado 9). After the urban legend is told, the woman goes right into saying, "My stomach swells. Inside of me, our child is swimming fiercely, kicking and pushing and clawing" (Machado 11). This urban legend and the language the mother uses when describing her pregnancy is very indirect. The language the mother uses, such as, "clawing" and "fiercely" reminds me of a wild animal. In the urban legend, it was told that the daughter grew up to be a wild animal. She would kill chickens, cubs, and run with the wolves....