The Other Two

One thing that I found interesting when reading and discussing "The Other Two" by Edith Wharton was the fact that Waythorn was primarily concerned with handling the fact that his wife had been divorced twice, not the fact itself.  My impression of the time period in which the story was written is that divorce was still largely looked down upon, but that doesn't seem to be of much concern in the story.  It's mentioned that Alice has a bit of a reputation around town, but it's not the central problem facing the characters.  It's accepted that Varick and Haskett were both married to Alice, Haskett having fathered her child, and that all parties have moved on since then.  The story could give this impression because the reader isn't really given an insight into the situation from the outside, instead having a one-sided perspective of the people directly involved.  The story is comical in its depiction of the awkwardness of having exes still in the picture, but there's still a slightly feminist tone to it.  Alice may be characterized as a bit flighty and ditzy, but she's also able to navigate her marriages, past and present, with apparent ease.  She affects each of the men in such a way that they are unable to resist the chance to be in her company.  A conflicting argument might be that if Alice were truly a feminist figure, she would abandon her husbands altogether and make a life for herself and her daughter, but to move from man to man like she does is a highly modern practice for the time, and she doesn't seem to be constrained by the social norms that were in place.

A Man Adrift

After considering the poem "A man adrift on a slim spar" by Steven Crane, the portrayal of nature reminded me of "To Build a Fire" by Jack London.  In the poem, the sea is characterized as a massive, fearful beast.  It froths, lashes, and growls - it sinks, heaves, and reels.  The horizon is so distant that it can barely be distinguished.  This vastness and danger is echoed in the description of the landscape in the short story.  There's nothing but ice and snow as far as the eye can see.  Both works employ a Naturalist image of the sublime - with nature as something that is awesome as well as fearsome.  The characters in both of the pieces are placed at the mercy of nature in one way or another, and both of them end up having their lives snuffed out by its power.  It's a dark and poignant image that makes these kinds of works fascinating to read.