Irving's "The Wife"

In reading the "The Wife" by Irving, Irving describes a couple during the time period facing hardships and relates it back to the time and the endurance one faces in being an American. What I had understood from the reading was the different roles than man had in the relationship between England and America. In today's time versus the time this story was written, the roles were significantly different. While in one country the man was to be the provider and if he could not hold his family together and provide for them, society would look down upon him. However, in the other country (America), it wasn't so bad if something were to happen where providing for the family became difficult. In Irving's story, he basically send the picture that economic status meant a lot during that time as described above. As far as marriage, if this couldn't be lived up, it would be hard for the man to let his wife know what they are dealing with. In the story, Leslie was a tad ashamed of the hardships they were facing and found it difficult to inform his wife about what was going on. Even so, women, as portrayed in this story, showed compassion for their husbands and actually held their head up when situations like this came upon them.