Introduction:

The In- Class Essay was very tricky for me. I remember being very confident in what I wanted to talk about before the start of class but as I sat there I panicked because I had absolutely no idea how to start. What helped me write as much as I did was separating the topics I wanted to talk about into paragraphs. Within the paragraphs I’d make bullets of how I would approach these topics and the way I would go in depth in my writing. This made writing the essay much easier and faster. By the end of the class I was confident and proud of what I had turned in.

In The Husband Stitch marriage and partnership play a huge role because throughout the story the narrator’s unwavering devotion to her husband eventually leads to her downfall. The story provides insight as to the gray area of marriages and how one’s personal boundaries can be ignored even by the ones who claim to love them. The issue behind not knowing why she has a green ribbon around her neck leads to a lot of conflicts throughout the story. 

The beginning of The Husband Stitch starts off seemingly with a classic love story between a young couple. They have a lot of sex, and the author does not go into too much detail about the ribbon itself. She makes a very strict boundary that she doesn’t want her ribbon touched nor will she say the reason why she has it. This seems to be the only boundary that she strictly upholds throughout the story, with her husband becoming more desperate as it progresses. 

After marrying her husband the overall tone of the story seems to switch due to the fact that their relationship is purely just sexual. The readers don’t really know the husband as a character despite the fact that he likes to have sex with his wife. It also leaves the question if her husband really does love her. They have no deep, meaningful interaction throughout the story.

 The birth of her son was a turning point because during the birthing scene with her in the hospital she doesn’t get much say into what happens to her. She is being knocked out for surgery while the doctor and her husband joke about adding one more stitch. The reason is to make it feel as if she were a virgin again. Her resistance toward this suggests that she doesn’t really have much of a say as to what her husband wants to do with her. She loses the right to her autonomy and this scene in specific doesn’t get touched upon again in the story. This shows the way the narrator, while she might not agree with the choices her husband makes for her, maintains her obedience. As a child the son doesn’t really mind her ribbon and sees it as a part of her. As he grows up the curiosity toward the ribbon grows and so does her husbands. The growing violence towards her during intimacy shows the disconnect between her and her husband and how the mystery of the ribbon created conflicts. He might feel that while he has control of her and her body, the only thing he has never been able to take from her is that ribbon. To have her entirely means to know what the ribbon is for. 

The ending scene is the most important part of the story, not only because the reader finds out why she has the ribbon, but also what it might signify. The narrator is finally starting to lose her sense of self. Her son is already grown up and found someone he loves, which makes her reflect on her own life. Her husband was once someone she was passionate about and with the tone of the story it seems as if their relationship is just needing to be with eachother out of necessity. She has sex with her husband one more time and then lets him take off the ribbon he has so desperately wanted to take off for so many years. There is a sense of release for her in this scene but it is also very grimm evidently because her head comes off. Her losing her head might mean she isn’t who she used to be before or losing her individuality. While she literally dies in the story she dies metaphorically.

While the narrator provided everything her husband ever wanted as a wife, that wasn’t enough for him. There wasn’t much partnership in this marriage because her husband was the only person who really had full control. The only thing in her life that she had control over was the ribbon and after that was taken away from her she was left with nothing. Within Machado’s collection as a whole there is a common theme of women having to change or losing control of their bodies for the benefit of a man or to live up to what society expects for them.