Near the beginning of the story, the narrator reveals some background information about Alice’s previous two marriages. When describing Alice’s marriage to Varick, the narrator uses a metaphor, as seen in the following passage:
Alice Haskett’s remarriage with Gus Varick was a passport to the set whose recognition she coveted, and for a few years the Varicks were the most popular couple in town. Unfortunately the alliance was brief and stormy, and this time the husband had his champions. Still, even Varick’s stanchest supporters admitted that he was not meant for matrimony.
In comparing Alice’s marriage to Varick as “a passport to the set whose recognition she coveted,” the narrator communicates something important about Alice’s desire for social advancement. Rather than marrying Varick for love, the narrator implies, Alice married him in order to have access to his elite New York social circle. While Waythorn goes on to resent Alice for her matrimonial social climbing later in the story, it is important to understand that being strategic about marriage was one of the only ways women at the time could access financial stability.
It is also notable that Varick and Alice’s marriage ends because Varick was “not meant for matrimony.” This is the narrator’s way of communicating that Varick was unfaithful to Alice. That Varick “had his champions” despite his unethical approach to marriage highlights the double standards people held at the time—unlike women, men could behave in marriages however they wanted to.
In an example of verbal irony near the end of the story, Waythorn metaphorically compares himself to a shareholder and his wife Alice to an asset that he partially owns:
With grim irony Waythorn compared himself to a member of a syndicate. He held so many shares in his wife’s personality and his predecessors were his partners in the business. […] [H]e took refuge in the cheap revenge of satirizing the situation. He even began to reckon up the advantages which accrued from it, to ask himself if it were not better to own a third of a wife who knew how to make a man happy than a whole one who had lacked opportunity to acquire the art.
In this metaphor, Waythorn is “a member of a syndicate”—or a group of people with a common interest—along with Varick and Haskett, Alice’s two previous husbands. In his bitter reflections, all three men hold “shares” in Alice’s personality. This is his way of communicating his frustration over the fact that Alice has knowingly molded her personality in order to make herself desirable to each of the three men, climbing the social ladder in the process. Waythorn extends the metaphor further, stating that he would rather “own a third of a wife” who could make him happy, rather than Alice, who, he implies, can no longer make him happy because she has split herself into three personalities tailored to each man.
This passage is an example of verbal irony because Waythorn is not earnestly comparing Alice to an object that he partially owns. Waythorn’s humorous intentions come across in the narrator's description of the “grim irony” of his reflection, as well as in Waythorn’s awareness that he is enacting a kind of “cheap revenge” against his wife by “satirizing the situation.” Still, Waythorn’s self-awareness does not change the fact that he is thinking of his wife in objectifying and demeaning terms. On some level, he views Alice as an object he possesses and feels threatened by the idea that other men could possess her as well.
When Waythorn reflects bitterly on Alice’s composure in her relationships with her ex-husbands, he uses a simile and a metaphor, as seen in the following passage:
The fact that Alice took her change of husbands like a change of weather reduced the situation to mediocrity. He could have forgiven her for blunders, for excesses: for resisting Haskett, for yielding to Varick; for anything but her acquiescence and her tact. She reminded him of a juggler tossing knives; but the knives were blunt and she knew they would never cut her.
The simile here—in which Waythorn states that Alice “took her change of husbands like a change of weather”—communicates his perception that Alice has no emotional reaction to marriage or divorce. While Waythorn used to admire Alice for her social etiquette and constant composure, at this point he sees it as a negative personality trait, as it means that she acts the same way toward him as she does with her exes. As Waythorn states, he could forgive her for “blunders” and “excesses” but not for “acquiescence” and “tact.” In other words, he wants to see her react to something so that he know she is able to feel something for him the way he feels something for her.
The metaphor here—in which Waythorn compares Alice to “a juggler tossing knives” that would never hurt her—again highlights how he believes Alice has nothing at stake in this situation. While Waythorn is in near-constant distress about Haskett and Varick’s presence in their lives—wishing that he and Alice could free themselves from having to relate to her ex-husbands—Alice is just stoically juggling all of them with no concern.
It is important to understand that this is Waythorn’s perception of Alice and not necessarily the “truth” about her character. While Waythorn views Alice as stoic and unperturbed, it’s likely that she is merely hiding and repressing her emotions in order to survive in their etiquette-obsessed society.
