The mood of “The Other Two” starts out lighthearted and becomes increasingly tense as Waythorn becomes more and more frustrated by the presence of Alice’s ex-husbands in his life. The following passage captures the joyful mood at the beginning of the story as Alice and Waythorn return home from their honeymoon:
It was their first night under his own roof, and he was surprised at his thrill of boyish agitation […] [H]ere he was listening for [Alice’s] step with a tender sense of all it symbolized, with some old trail of verse about the garlanded nuptial doorposts floating through his enjoyment of the pleasant room and the good dinner just beyond it.
The cheerful mood here is communicated by positively-coded descriptions like “his thrill of boyish agitation,” “his enjoyment,” “the pleasant room,” “the good dinner,” and so on. The image of “nuptial doorposts” covered in flowers also contributes to the joyful mood.
As Waythorn becomes disillusioned with Alice—whom he views as being incapable of expressing real emotion or setting boundaries with her ex-husbands—the mood becomes more tense. Take the following passage, for example, in which he reflects bitterly on Alice’s character:
Her pliancy was beginning to sicken him […] Her elasticity was the result of tension in too many different directions. Alice Haskett — Alice Varick — Alice Waythorn — she had been each in turn, and had left hanging to each name a little of her privacy, a little of her personality, a little of the inmost self where the unknown god abides.
Waythorn’s frustration comes across in his descriptions of how Alice’s “pliancy” (or composed, deferential nature) “was beginning to sicken him” and how she had “left hanging” onto each of her husbands “a little of the inmost self where the unknown god abides.” This is quite the accusation—that Alice has given away parts of herself in each of her marriages and has, as a result, become spiritually fractured. The tense mood here is tied to Waythorn’s sexist belief that his wife is somehow tainted by her previous relationships as well as his unreasonable expectation that his wife should be “pliant” for him and not for other men.
The mood of “The Other Two” starts out lighthearted and becomes increasingly tense as Waythorn becomes more and more frustrated by the presence of Alice’s ex-husbands in his life. The following passage captures the joyful mood at the beginning of the story as Alice and Waythorn return home from their honeymoon:
It was their first night under his own roof, and he was surprised at his thrill of boyish agitation […] [H]ere he was listening for [Alice’s] step with a tender sense of all it symbolized, with some old trail of verse about the garlanded nuptial doorposts floating through his enjoyment of the pleasant room and the good dinner just beyond it.
The cheerful mood here is communicated by positively-coded descriptions like “his thrill of boyish agitation,” “his enjoyment,” “the pleasant room,” “the good dinner,” and so on. The image of “nuptial doorposts” covered in flowers also contributes to the joyful mood.
As Waythorn becomes disillusioned with Alice—whom he views as being incapable of expressing real emotion or setting boundaries with her ex-husbands—the mood becomes more tense. Take the following passage, for example, in which he reflects bitterly on Alice’s character:
Her pliancy was beginning to sicken him […] Her elasticity was the result of tension in too many different directions. Alice Haskett — Alice Varick — Alice Waythorn — she had been each in turn, and had left hanging to each name a little of her privacy, a little of her personality, a little of the inmost self where the unknown god abides.
Waythorn’s frustration comes across in his descriptions of how Alice’s “pliancy” (or composed, deferential nature) “was beginning to sicken him” and how she had “left hanging” onto each of her husbands “a little of the inmost self where the unknown god abides.” This is quite the accusation—that Alice has given away parts of herself in each of her marriages and has, as a result, become spiritually fractured. The tense mood here is tied to Waythorn’s sexist belief that his wife is somehow tainted by her previous relationships as well as his unreasonable expectation that his wife should be “pliant” for him and not for other men.
