Summary:

     Born into an affluent family and exposed to uncompromising societal expectations, Edith Wharton (1862-1937) resisted this surrounding social circle by pursuing a career in writing and by ending her unhappy marriage with a divorce. In her works, Wharton wrote about the elite class, of which she was a member, and focused on the superficiality of their stringent customs and obsession with appearance.  

  In "The Other Two" Waythorn is confronted with his new wife's past husbands causing him to realize that her experiences as their wives shaped the kind of wife she is now.  Waythorn himself is a perceiver of these societal judgements.  For example, he struggles to overcome his initial disgust for Mr. Haskett that resulted from his fake tie. Waythorn’s repeated encounters with his wife's two ex-husbands results in his cordially tolerating their presence, but also taints his view of Alice, who he now believes remarried in order to elevate her social status.  This demonstrates that one's appearance is the motivation for many of the characters' actions.  Waythorn worries that he does not have sole “possessorship” over his wife because part of her belongs to her other two husbands.

    The society Wharton portrays can be likened to a panopticon, where there characters are expected to mind the customs in public.  This is evident in the amiable surfaces of interactions between the men and Alice which cover the awkwardness of their situation.  This is similar to the society Henry James creates in "Daisy Miller," as Daisy defies the idea of public discretion, bringing on to herself the wrath of the other American women. No longer being in American culture, Daisy has difficulty assimilating into the European idea of a woman, and thus leads to her tragic end.  This emphasis on outward behavior is a distinctive feature of realism.   

word count: 300

Passages:

"She seemed a creature all compact of harmonies.  As the thought of Haskett receded, Waythorn felt himself yielding again to the joy of possessorship.  They were his, those whit hands with their flitting motions, his the the light haze of hair, the lips and eyes... She set down the coffeepot , and reaching for the decanter of cognac, measured off a liqueur glass and poured it into his cup." page 835

•      Here it becomes clear that Waythorn feels a sense of possession over his wife, however the fact that she pours cognac into his coffee, the way he had previously seen Varick make his coffee, signifies that he is not the sole possessor.  She in fact belongs partially to her previous two husbands.

"He was glad, in the end, to appear the more self-possessed of the two."

• Here it is obvious that in this society apperances are most important.

Key Terms:

Panopticon: Jeremy Bentham's prison design where an observer can watch prisoners witout their knowledge of when they are being watched. The idea is that they will police themselves because of this.