Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Moving Finger, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love, Obsession, and Control
Beauty and Objectification
Grief and Loneliness
Summary
Analysis
The narrator is shocked when he hears that Mrs. Grancy died. Although Mrs. Grancy wasn’t a particularly influential member of society, her death has left a large void for those who knew her—particularly for her widower, Ralph Grancy. Mrs. Grancy’s role in life was to serve Mr. Grancy; she was his sole source of support, comfort, and inspiration. Her presence is what enabled Mr. Grancy to cultivate a happy life and make himself useful to everyone around him.
Beginning the story with Mrs. Grancy’s death hints that her passing will be central to the plot. Clearly, even though Mrs. Grancy wasn’t a public figure, she was very important to those closest to her. Her death is therefore likely to be devastating for her loved ones, especially her husband. The narrator seems to find it romantic that Mr. Grancy’s life was so centered around Mrs. Grancy—but the fact that Mr. Grancy had no other source of happiness in his life is a sign that he was perhaps unhealthily dependent on his wife.
Themes
Literary Devices
The narrator and the rest of Mr. Grancy’s “small but devoted band of followers” have seen Mr. Grancy struggle against obstacles like illness and poverty in the past. Worst of all, Mr. Grancy’s first wife was egotistical and controlling; to his friends, it seemed like the relationship was slowly drowning him. When his first wife died, Mr. Grancy’s friends wondered how much of Mr. Grancy she took with her. Even after his first wife’s death, Mr. Grancy still seemed weakened by her, as though a parasite had sucked the life out of him. But when he met his second wife, Mrs. Grancy, he flourished.
The narrator’s characterization of Mr. Grancy’s friends (including the narrator himself) as his “small but devoted band of followers” sets Mr. Grancy up as a sociable, dominant man whom others look up to. However, the insight about his first marriage contradicts his public image: he seemed to have been dominated by his first wife, yet he chose to endure her cruelty rather than be alone. And, importantly, it was only when he met the second Mrs. Grancy that he was able to regain his confidence and happiness, meaning that he was still depending on another person to feel complete. Together, these details further characterize Mr. Grancy as someone who is perhaps unhealthily invested in his romantic relationships.
Themes
Mrs. Grancy was over 30 years old when she married Mr. Grancy, but she still radiated youth and beauty. The narrator and Mr. Grancy’s other friends were shocked when Mr. Grancy brought his new wife home to New York—after all, any other man who had experienced a terrible first marriage would have avoided another. But Mr. Grancy’s friends recognized that he was very sentimental, so they expected that he would repeat his previous mistake. When the narrator and the others met the beautiful Mrs. Grancy, however, they didn’t worry about Mr. Grancy anymore—being with Mrs. Grancy would surely enable him to do great things.
The narrator focuses solely on Mrs. Grancy’s physical appearance, which implies that her beauty—not any of her other qualities—is what the men in Mrs. Grancy’s life value about her. Meanwhile, Mr. Grancy’s friends view him as something of a hopeless romantic: someone who is willing to risk misery and heartbreak if it means having a partner to complete him.
Themes
Literary Devices
Claydon, an artist in the narrator’s friend group, believed that marrying Mrs. Grancy was Mr. Grancy’s great deed—and Mr. Grancy agreed. He was so enamored with Mrs. Grancy that he commissioned Claydon to paint a portrait of her. Mr. Grancy’s friends all agreed that Mrs. Grancy’s unique beauty was a product of her environment—Mr. Grancy’s presence is what brought it out. In return, Mrs. Grancy seemed to open up a new perspective for Mr. Grancy, reviving the vitality and optimism that his previous wife had stifled in him.
Mr. Grancy’s friends believe that marrying Mrs. Grancy is his greatest accomplishment, which reinforces Mr. Grancy’s tendency to center his life around his romantic partner. They also seem to view Mrs. Grancy’s physical appearance as her primary source of worth. Though this is meant to be complimentary, it objectifies her and diminishes any non-physical qualities she might have to offer. The Grancys’ friends also believe that Mrs. Grancy’s beauty is only fully brought out by her husband’s presence; her value depends on her beauty, and her beauty depends on Mr. Grancy.
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Literary Devices
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To Mr. Grancy’s friends, it was clear that his presence (and even the mention of his name) had a visible effect on Mrs. Grancy: the love that the couple shared seemed to light her up from within. Her eyes would take on a charming and mysterious quality when Mr. Grancy was around, which Claydon perfectly captured in Mrs. Grancy’s portrait.
Again, Mr. Grancy and his friends are solely focused on Mrs. Grancy’s appearance, to the point that Mr. Grancy wants to capture her beauty in a portrait. Given that Mr. Grancy seems to be overly dependent on his romantic relationships, this desire is perhaps rooted in possessiveness over Mrs. Grancy rather than a genuine desire to honor her. And, especially given that the narrator hasn’t mentioned anything else about Mrs. Grancy, it seems that glorifying her beauty with a portrait is more objectifying than it is flattering.
Themes
Those who attended Claydon’s art exhibition hailed the portrait as his masterpiece, though people who knew Mrs. Grancy said that it was a flattered representation of what she really looked like. But the narrator knew that Claydon painted Mrs. Grancy exactly as Mr. Grancy—not anyone else—saw her. Mr. Grancy also understood this when he saw the portrait, whereas Mrs. Grancy just commented that her likeness looked like she was facing the sun. In retrospect, the narrator thinks that the portrait initially seemed inconsequential to the Grancys’ lives—it only became significant later.
Claydon paints Mrs. Grancy as Mr. Grancy sees her, rather than how other people see her—or how she sees herself. This again suggests that Mr. Grancy’s feelings for Mrs. Grancy aren’t based on a genuine love of who she is; they’re based on a romanticized idea of her.
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Literary Devices
A year after Mr. and Mrs. Grancy married, Mr. Grancy gave up his townhouse, and the couple moved an hour away to the countryside. Mr. Grancy still did business in New York, but his friends naturally saw him less often than when he lived in the city. Although this disappointed the narrator and the rest of Mr. Grancy’s friends, they felt that Mr. Grancy deserved to be happy in whatever way he chose.
This passage further characterizes Mr. Grancy as someone who’s willing to sacrifice other aspects of his life for the sake of his marriage. Although his friends are deeply important to him, he seems to want to isolate himself in his relationship with Mrs. Grancy, which suggests that his happiness lies with her and her alone.
Themes
After the move, Mr. Grancy’s friends began spending Sundays in the library at the Grancys’ rural home, the room where Mrs. Grancy’s portrait hung. The narrator and the others would tease Claydon that he only visited to see the painting, and once, Claydon cryptically responded that “the portrait was Mrs. Grancy.” One of the other men in the group, a novelist, said that Claydon saved himself from falling in love with Mrs. Grancy by falling in love with her portrait instead.
Claydon’s obsession with Mrs. Grancy’s portrait—and particularly his assertion that the painting is Mrs. Grancy—suggests that he views Mrs. Grancy’s appearance as her most important quality. He seems to think that his painting of Mrs. Grancy conveys everything there is to know about her. Mr. Grancy’s other friends recognize that Claydon is in love with his own depiction of Mrs. Grancy, which implies that he—much like Mr. Grancy—loves his romanticized idea of Mrs. Grancy more than he loves the woman herself. In fact, Claydon’s obsession with Mrs. Grancy doesn’t seem to be rooted in love at all, but in a fixation on and possessiveness of her beauty.
Themes
Literary Devices
While the other men were charmed by Mrs. Grancy’s presence in the library and enjoyed having her participate in their conversations, Claydon would look up at her portrait instead, as though listening to the painting speak. The narrator remembers how magical these Sunday afternoons felt, as the Grancys’ happiness seemed to radiate onto their guests and made all of their hopes and dreams seem possible.
Claydon gazes up at Mrs. Grancy’s painting while she speaks rather than looking at the woman herself, which further indicates that he isn’t in love with Mrs. Grancy—he’s merely obsessed with her beauty. Meanwhile, the narrator’s observation about the Grancys’ contagious happiness gives insight into why Mrs. Grancy’s impending death is such a tremendous loss.
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