My wife does nothing but cook awful meals, have babies, and take care of children. She doesn’t even have to raise the kids past the age of accountability. A little bit after the time they can talk, our children get sent to a government center that can provide for them much better than we can. Ugh! Ann does nothing well except produce clean babies. Besides her one to two hours of work, she sits at home ready to piss me off when I get there. If she had any idea about the amount of work I do in order to keep us from being on Subsistence, then she might stop burning my bacon, screaming at me to wake up, and wasting my money. She is so fortunate that I am an easygoing man or I’d have left her a long time ago.
This first person narrative of Mr. Henry Crothers illustrates the unsympathetic attitude Henry has towards his wife. Nothing that Ann does for the kids, the home, or Henry is good enough in his eyes’. On an everyday basis, the most ridiculous symptom of Henry’s treatment of Ann is with bacon. Being extraordinarily particular, Mr. Crothers says, “Then why’d you cook bacon? You know I can’t eat bacon without eggs” (69). Henry may have a bacon with egg only palate, but he goes too far by yelling at his wife. The co-op ran out of eggs, which must be Ann’s fault. Far worse is Henry’s treatment of his kids. Ann has to raise kids like a cattle breeder, while Henry cannot be bothered with them. The kids stay in the basement while Henry eats breakfast and go to bed before he gets home. Ann reflects on Henry coming home from work, “The children were asleep before he came home, and Ann was glad. Sometimes they got on his nerves and he swore at them” (72). To Henry, his kids mean a bonus check from the government. Ann has to curtail Henry’s encounters with the children because he does not even care to see them.
Taking this story as an exaggeration of what the household was like for women in the 1950s should still scare the reader. Women were underappreciated and that really shows in this text. The role of a breeding maid does not suit anyone. Having this story set in a science fiction world allows for the overstatement on the deficit of quality of life between men and women of A.E. Jones’ time.
4 Comments
One of the things that first caught me about your post was how you said “The co-op ran out of eggs, which must be Ann’s fault,” which goes hand in hand with what we were discussing in class today on the idea that consumerism became the wife’s fault in the hyper-normal society of the 1950s. Blame for lack of money due to perceived wife’s consumerism (even though it’s obviously both partners participating) parallels the story’s lack of goods (eggs) due to unavoidable circumstances (the co-op being out). How does this make it Ann’s fault that the co-op was out of eggs? And further still, how can a man blame his wife for her extreme consumerism when it is being jammed down her throat that this is the basis of America? Women were not the only ones who desired to buy things, especially with the increased ownership of cars and other such “manly” products. A man wouldn’t want to be behind his neighbors, would he? Of course he’s taking part in this consumption-based society, but since the wife probably makes most of the actual purposes, the natural conclusion is that it’s her fault. I got on a bit of a tangent here, but what I’m trying to say is that I like the analysis of Henry stepping back and putting all of this on Ann, which reflects society in that if there were problems, they were blamed on the wife.
Great picture too!!
The first person narrative fits really well into how I imagined Henry Crothers. He only sees himself as contributing to their relationship, while Ann tries to make their life as complicated as possible. In reality, she seems to care more about their relationship than he does by taking all of his preferences into serious consideration. Whereas Henry sees himself as the one who deserves sympathy, all of his actions cause the reader to do the opposite by sympathizing with Ann. I thought the bacon reference was a funny example to display the extremes of Henry’s attitude. Bacon without eggs seems like a bizarre problem to complain about, but if one thing is wrong in Henry’s routine he sees it as necessary to make a fuss about it. Also, the comic fits perfectly into Henry’s character!
I didn’t mention it before, but great job on the first-person of Henry Crothers! I think you’re spot-on!
Also, great comic!
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