Gender and Marriage Theme Analysis

Throughout the short story, Mary Maloney is firmly situated in a patriarchal society—that is, a system in which men hold more power than women politically, socially, and economically. Historically, women have been often consigned to the private sphere of domestic life, as they were deemed by men to be intellectually and emotionally unfit for the public sphere outside of family and home life. Men, on the other hand, were able to move through both spheres, enjoying the comforts of domestic life provided by wives and mothers while interacting with the political and economic institutions of the public arena.

Mary’s marriage is a perfect example of gendered hierarchy, as her entire life revolves around that of her husband. While Patrick works in the public sphere as a detective, Mary stays at home in the private domestic sphere, working on her sewing and eagerly awaiting his return “after the long hours alone in the house.” Once her husband arrives, all of her energy is devoted to anticipating his needs. Fulfilling the duties of a stereotypical housewife, Mary, demonstrates her affectionate submission by performing various domestic tasks for her husband — for example, hanging up his coat, making him drinks, offering to fetch his slippers and make supper — despite the fact that she is six months pregnant and Patrick barely acknowledges her efforts.

Like the society in which the story is set, Mary’s marriage is heavily influenced by male or masculine dominance. The narrator explicitly describes Mary’s love for her husband as an idolization of or subservience to masculinity. Patrick’s return home is “blissful” for Mary not only because she has been isolated in the house all day but also because she “loved to luxuriate in the presence of this man, and to feel—almost as a sunbather feels the sun—that warm male glow that came out of him to her when they were alone together.” Mary’s comparison of masculinity to the sun, to a powerful celestial force indifferent to yet shining upon mere humans, reinforces a gender hierarchy in which men are associated with strength and perfection, and women with weakness and inferiority.

This male dominance also manifests in the lack of reciprocity in the Maloneys’ marriage. Despite Mary’s repeated endearments of “Darling” and attempts to make her husband more comfortable, Patrick responds brusquely, without reciprocating her affection or acknowledging the effort it must take her, as a heavily pregnant woman, to care for him and the house. Furthermore, when Mary attempts to engage him in conversation or requests that he eat something, Patrick ignores her, but when he wishes to speak to her, he orders her to “Sit down,” expecting her to submit as a dog would to its master. Whereas Mary attends to both his physical and emotional needs (preparing him drinks, offering him food, sympathizing with him about his job), Patrick assumes that his wife is little more than a creature to be “looked after” financially when he leaves her. After breaking the news of his imminent departure, he dismisses his wife’s potential reactions and emotions as “fuss,” coldly asserting that it would be bad for his job. Patrick’s privileging of his work over Mary stands in stark contrast to the life she has built around him.

After Mary murders her husband, then, she is able to escape suspicion partly because of her cleverness and partly because the policemen hold traditional, patriarchal views of women as caregivers incapable of violence or deceit. When Jack Noonan, a detective and friend of Patrick, asks Mary is she would prefer the company of her sister or of his own wife, he reinforces the stereotype of women, and thus of Mary, as caregivers. When he explains to Mary what happened to Patrick, he implicitly assumes the culprit is male, using masculine pronouns such as “him” and “he” to describe the murderer. The detectives consider “impossible” the idea that Mary has deceived them all as well as Sam, the grocer who unwittingly becomes her alibi.