American Wife

Character Analysis

No, we're not forgetful; we simply never learn this woman's name. Neither the narrator, nor the hotel staff, nor even her own husband ever address the American wife by her name, which means that we can only talk about her using the words we're given by the story – American wife, American girl, and the title used by the maid and the padrone, "Signora." We'll admit—it's a little awkward since she's also the main character of the story, but there's a reason behind this awkwardness that's a bit deeper than you might expect. By not naming her, Hemingway helps us ask how much this character is an "American wife"—a stereotype or reflection of a typical "American wife" in the 1920s. Let's consider this, shall we?

The fact that the husband and wife are the only Americans in the hotel draws particular attention to their nationality. Hemingway is putting them in a context where they are the most American thing since Wonderbread. We can't be sure why they're here—maybe a honeymoon, a trip, or the husband's work. What do you think? Their drifting state also helps us see the importance of their marriage: being a wife is the only identity the woman seems to have. While her husband may have his reading (and may choose to listen or not listen, care or not care), the wife is simply waiting, as if she's dependent upon his movements, desires and decisions. Or, at least, she seems to be.

Flapper Girl Gone Wild?

Let's not forget—"American girls" are not just known as complacent, passive people. In many other parts of the world, people think of Americans as fiercely independent, even rash. This side of the coin is reflected in the story, too. The wife goes out into the rain on a whim, speaks her mind, and has the trademark boyish "flapper" haircut that she critiques while looking in the mirror.

While she's stereotypically wife-y in her exaggerated dependence on her husband, she's a typical American in her energy and spirit. Together, these things make for a real paradox and offers up a big question too: can "American girls" of the 1920s be "wives" in the traditional sense? What happens when you take a flapper girl's energy and independence of a flapper girl and tether her to some guy content to read his book and prefer his wife be seen more than heard?

By giving us this image and representation of an "American wife"—and not even letting us call her by another name—allows Hemingway to make a pretty interesting jab at the problems faced by his overly-idealistic generation.

I Want One of Those

Of course, we could also argue that the "American wife" is ready to be something other than the American girl we see her as. She's restless. She has nothing to do with herself. The way she springs into action when she sees the cat tells us a lot about just how bored she is. The idea of rescuing a cat offers her a temporary sense of purpose, and perhaps even a more permanent purpose if she gets to keep it…never mind the fact that she's far from home in an Italian hotel.

Think, too, of the list of "wants" she spouts when she returns to the room: a cat, her own silver, candles, her own dining table. She doesn't explicitly say she wants a home, but that's sort of where all of these things belong, right? The other things she wants, long hair (when she has short hair), springtime (when it's not), and new clothes are all desires for change.

You might think she sounds like Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—the little girl who wanted everything and wanted it now—but the American wife isn't quite in the same category of spoiled-rottenness, though she is filled with desire for something other than her present circumstances. She and her husband are living a kind of suspended, floating life—reflected in the fact that they're living in a hotel room. Juxtapose this, as Hemingway does, with the hotel owner, the padrone, and what he represents to the wife: something solid, old, respectful, dignified, serious. All of these attributes belong to the kind of dream-life she imagines as she sits in front of the mirror. You might say that it's her very American-ness that she's sick of—it's what she wants to trade in for the old, solid values of an older and more established country, like Italy.

Still, on the other hand (If you don't have a third hand, borrow one from a friend for a sec), the very rashness of wanting all these things that can't be and that her present life and marriage can't give her, seems to be part of the same impulsive, untethered American spirit that the wife wants to get away from.

Take a second to ponder that one.

It's this paradox that makes the American wife such an interesting, complex character. It's also this paradox that reflects Hemingway's tragic attitude toward the American position. He seems to say that the American desire to be more established stems mostly from the things we want to flee.

As the reader, we don't necessarily have to agree. The wife is a woman you can like and sympathize with very much, but she's also a woman you might see as a whiny brat who won't shut up, like her husband seems to. It's this range of possibilities, however, and the way in which she talks about desires that she doesn't quite comprehend that makes this character so multi-dimensional and so real. Come on, what's more real than that— knowing only the tips of our desires, but feeling their unnamed shadowy bulk deep within us?