Edith Wharton's "The Other Two" really caught me off guard. When I started it, just after reading Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," I was expecting the same kind of Roald Dahl style writing--with the expected folding suddenly into the unexpected or the strange, or both, like Roald Dahl's short stories in Lamb to the Slaughter (1953), Kiss Kiss (1960), or Switch Bitch (1974).
So when I finished, naturally, the conclusion had me a little puzzled--while reading the story, I had felt like the writer was gearing me up for some kind of twist (writing the details and the mundane but with sinister motive, again like Roald Dahl) some kind of big conclusion, maybe not as Twilight Zone-esque as the twist at the end of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," but still a twist none the less. Particularly, it seemed like the story was going to end with some sort of major change--like say, Alice leaves Waythorn or visaversa--or even some bigger, more intense and unexpected change or conclusion--more in the "strange" Roald Dahl direction. However, in the end, Edith Wharton's "The Other Two" concluded more or less as relaxed as it started, being more about personal and emotional conclusion than a plot-tied physical one.
I ended up rereading "The Other Two" after class the other day, this time with a more open mind, and without expectation for the Twilight Zone resolution I knew now wasn't going to be there. I most definitely got more out it--it seemed like the piece ended up being just a simple account of man, Waythorn, changing his outlook. "The Other Two" opens with Waythorn being totally uncomfortable even with the mere idea of having to meet either of his wife Alice's two ex-husbands (a la "The Other Two"), and being totally and completely infatuated with her, and over the course of the story, with the other two men, Haskett and Varick, becoming increasingly unavoidable in his life, Waythorn eventually comes to terms with how things are and how thing will have to be, seeing both men for who they both actually are, as well as seeing his wife for who she actually is, under a less blinding light. The twist is the transformation of Waythorn's perspective--moving from, in a way, rejecting his situation to accepting it.
So when I finished, naturally, the conclusion had me a little puzzled--while reading the story, I had felt like the writer was gearing me up for some kind of twist (writing the details and the mundane but with sinister motive, again like Roald Dahl) some kind of big conclusion, maybe not as Twilight Zone-esque as the twist at the end of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," but still a twist none the less. Particularly, it seemed like the story was going to end with some sort of major change--like say, Alice leaves Waythorn or visaversa--or even some bigger, more intense and unexpected change or conclusion--more in the "strange" Roald Dahl direction. However, in the end, Edith Wharton's "The Other Two" concluded more or less as relaxed as it started, being more about personal and emotional conclusion than a plot-tied physical one.
I ended up rereading "The Other Two" after class the other day, this time with a more open mind, and without expectation for the Twilight Zone resolution I knew now wasn't going to be there. I most definitely got more out it--it seemed like the piece ended up being just a simple account of man, Waythorn, changing his outlook. "The Other Two" opens with Waythorn being totally uncomfortable even with the mere idea of having to meet either of his wife Alice's two ex-husbands (a la "The Other Two"), and being totally and completely infatuated with her, and over the course of the story, with the other two men, Haskett and Varick, becoming increasingly unavoidable in his life, Waythorn eventually comes to terms with how things are and how thing will have to be, seeing both men for who they both actually are, as well as seeing his wife for who she actually is, under a less blinding light. The twist is the transformation of Waythorn's perspective--moving from, in a way, rejecting his situation to accepting it.
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