ENG1141
Creative Writing
Formal Critique
Reviewer’s Name: Sarvinoz Erkinova
Title of Piece: “The Wife’s Story”
Author’s Name: Ursula Le Guin
Plot: I really enjoyed reading the story because it was very interesting. I wanted it not to end because as I was reading I was imagining that I was the wife and creating images in my head on how it will go. I was very excited. The story begins with a description of the wife about her husband. She tells that she had a very good impression of him when she first met him with his mother and wanted to get to know him. Once she saw him in the woods alone in the morning, they began talking, and things took off between them from there. She was in love with him so much, everybody looked up to him, he was good looking, hard-working, and a good singer with a strong voice coming through the trees. She was very happy with her life and they had children together until the day he would come home late when the moon has turned dark where he cannot sleep and goes out alone. He would come back home late tired, strange, with weird smells on him. When she was questioning him about what has happened, he would not respond properly and just say “Oh, hunting, be back this evening.” One day their young daughter sees him turn into a strange figure and gets very frightened, then she also sees him turn into a figure like that and trying to hurt her and her children, and they decide to kill him while he was in that figure.
Didn’t the main character know or heard from others that he had a tendency to turn into a creature like that before they got together?
Characters: Characters in the story was the young wife, her young husband, their children, wife’s sister and people who lived around them
Why did she not ask her sister one day to stay with children so she could go chase after him and see what he’s really doing instead of staying home and worrying?
Point of View: I enjoyed how the story consists of using a first person narrative because it is more vivid, descriptive, and we can feel the emotional state of the narrator.
Why was he acting different and leaving home at nights only when the moon has turned dark?
Setting & Context: The setting takes place in the woods around the Spring Lake. I liked how the narrator said the first thing that made her fall in love with her husband was because he used to like the nature and morning air and that if things didn’t go his way he did not “grouch and whine.”
Voice & Style: I liked the how the author used words to describe her husband, a kind of a nice person he was, and a description of her husband when he used to turn to a creature other than himself very vividly.
Were the characters actual humans turning to other creatures or vice versa?
Dialogue: Dialogue was used when the wife was having a conversation with her husband and her sister. I liked how the author used husband’s responses to his wife in short quotations to describe his behavior.
Hi Sarvinoz, I enjoyed reading your piece about “The Wife’s Story”. I’d have to say I agree with a lot of the questions you’ve asked the author. Specifically the question you’ve asked under ‘Plot’ that “Didn’t the main character know or heard from others that he had a tendency to turn into a creature like that before they got together?” I also want to know why she didn’t figure him out about his “hunting times” because he used to go to hunting a lot and she should’ve suspected him more on that note and follow him and see what was he up to when he suddenly disappears. I think she was a little too careless of her husband’s actions until it was too late.
Good evening Sarvinoz,
I agree “The Wife’s Story” was very interesting. I was reading it on the local train into work, and the moment I looked up I was approaching my stop. This shows how much I was into the story. They were multiple time that I started to make assumption about the husband turning violent or cheated on his wife, but that was not the case. It was a complete shock to me when they were a wolf family, and the husband turns into an unknown thing.
Hey Sarvinoz, I also loved the story and wish it went on longer. It was so well written. The way the author describes what her husband transforms into was so disturbing, and it was so shocking when it was revealed he had become a man.