The marriage (Afterward)

When focused on the aspect of marriage, “Afterward” is a story about the alienation of a married couple (Heller 18). Mary and Edward are distinctively gendered like other characters in Edith Wharton’s fiction. Mary portrays the passive, nonintellectual female. Mary is by no means dumb as shown by the fact that she quickly realizes that there is a secret between her and her husband. However, the does not bother to investigate. Instead, she is very passive. Ned, on the other hand, portrays a husband that is emotionally cold and always in control of his wife. This becomes visible when Mary questions him about the letter she got from her friend. Despite the fact that Mary is shaken and in utter turmoil, he remains calm and soothes her to the point where she feels once more justified in her blind trust (Fedorko 54). Eventually, even though Mary is mostly passive, she probes her way to awareness and is rewarded with terror, but also with self-knowledge, self-knowledge that for example the character Lily Bart in the "House of Mirth", doesn’t allow herself to see (Fedorko 54).

Mary Boyne embodies Wharton’s point of view when it comes to women as listeners. According to Wharton, Women are way better listeners than talkers (Fedorko 15). Mary Boyne shows this with her docile behavior whenever she is around Ned Boyne. She talks to her husband, but it seems very clear that in all their conversations Ned is the dominant part. Always in control, always able to steer a conversation into the direction in which he wants it to go. Edward Boyne is depicted as a man that has full control over his wife. This is obvious in chapter one. Mary gets curious when they see the ghost for the first time from the roof of Lyng, but once again, her clever husband, always in control of her, manages to distract her by climbing Meldon Steep with her (Fedorko 55).

Ned, the intellectual man, tries to seclude himself and his woman from the world. Which is no problem for him because the childlike Mary seems to happily accept the seclusion at first (Fedorko 54). This is the same blind trust that is shown when it comes to Ned’s business affairs, of which Mary tries to stay out. She does so for several reasons. Firstly, because she blindly trusts Ned. This trust is mentioned in the story itself and justified by the fact that the trust has never been betrayed and is, therefore, Ned’s right (Wharton 355).

Secondly, because she does not understand everything when it comes to business, as shown when they sit in the library and she tells Ned that she only understands about half of what is written in the letter she got (Wharton 352). Thirdly, it is said that whenever Ned talked to her about his business, she found it difficult to focus on what he said (Wharton 353).

The alienation between them is pointed out in chapter two: “He had risen at the same instant, almost as if hearing her cry before she uttered it; and for a perceptible space of time he and she studied each other, like adversaries watching for an advantage, across the space between her chair and his desk.” (Wharton 352). A married, loving couple would never be described as adversaries (Heller 18). Furthermore, it is pointed out that there is a table between them, possibly a sign there is something between them. Only at the end of the conversation does Ned approach her, to cover up the secret he hides from her, to comfort and reassure her, to regain his control over her (Wharton 354). That there is no real intimacy is shown by the fact that even when questioned, Boyne does not tell Mary the truth (Heller 19). It is important to mention that the rotten marriage is not just Edward’s fault. Edward’s dishonesty, as well as Mary’s lack of interest in his business transactions, are what keeps them from having real intimacy (Heller 19).

Both Boynes in “Afterward” are fleeing, hence why they picked such an isolated building as their new home. Ned is fleeing from his wrongdoing in Waukesha and Mary tries to escape from her responsibilities as a wife. Instead of paying attention to her husband’s business transactions, she is ignorant (Heller 18). This is hinted at in the story with the text passage:

Besides, she had felt during their years of exile, that, in a community where the amenities of living could be obtained only at the cost of efforts as arduous as her husband’s professional labors, such brief leisure as he and she could command should be used as an escape from immediate preoccupations, a flight to the life they always dreamed of living. Once or twice, now that this new life had actually drawn its magic circle about them, she had asked herself if she had done right; but hitherto such conjectures had been no more than the retrospective excursions of an active fancy. (Wharton 353)

“An escape from immediate preoccupations…” and “… now that this new life had actually drawn its magic circle about them.” (Wharton 353) Both of them are fleeing and have the illusion that their new life in England has drawn a magic circle around them.

The lamps in the story are a central image and can be seen as an attempt to discover the secret between them. The light is often described in combination with Ned Boyne, a hint at the fact that he hides a secret (Heller 18). “…and the light struck up into Boyne’s face as he turned over the letters.” (Wharton 351) Meanwhile, the light seems to make Mary Boyne feel more comfortable: “With the dispersal of shadows, and the repetition of the daily domestic office, Mary Boyne felt herself less oppressed by that sense of something mutely imminent which had darkened her afternoon.” (Wharton 351).

The ghost the Boyne’s are facing at Lyng is an outward sign of inward turmoil. The conflicts and lies of the living generate the ghost in “Afterward” as well as the ghost in “The Eyes” (Heller 19). Ned Boyne is obviously a liar and one might get the idea that at least someone is lying, just by reading the name of their house “Lyng” which is just one letter short of spelling the word “lying” (Heller 18).

As mentioned before, the man in this story, Edward Boyne, is intelligent and said intelligence earns him the adoration of his wife. It allows him to control her while ensuring that she is blind to his flaws. Mary Boyne idolizes her husband and thus doesn’t bother to investigate what the secret between them is. This superficial charm and lack of depth is something Wharton saw in her lover Morton Fullerton too. Furthermore, she discovered that both, her husband and Fullerton were having affairs around the time she wrote the story “Afterward”. Perhaps those events inspired her to make the husband of Mary Boyne a liar (Heller 19).

• Fedorko, Kathy A. Gender and the Gothic in the Fiction of Edith Wharton. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1995. Print.

• Heller, Janet Ruth. “Ghosts and Marital Estrangement: An Analysis of “Afterward””. Edith Wharton Review. Vol. 10, No. 1 Spring, 1993: 18-19. Web. (online available under: https://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/wharton/ewr10-1s93.pdf) (Retrieved 15/06/2019)

• Wharton, Edith. "Afterward". The Muse's Tragedy and Other Stories . Ed. Candace Waid. London: Penguin Books, 1992. 342-373. Print.