ENG1141

Creative Writing

Formal Critique

Reviewer’s Name:  Diana Rivera

Title of Piece: The Wife’s Story                              Author’s Name: Ursula K. Le Guin

Plot: The whole plot of the writing piece was about a family of werewolves and the process of a wife seeing her husband turn into a human. What I enjoy from reading the plot was the way that my brain transitioned from being very confused to realizing what was actually happening.

Did the children feel hate toward the aunt because of what she did to their dad?

Point of View: The point of view from the beginning and the end was the point of view of the wife. The middle of the story however showed a glimmer of how her youngest child felt when she saw her father walk into the house. It was very consistent with how she saw the whole situation from beginning to end. The way it started with how worried her tone came off even when describing the happy moments of their love.

Did Ursula K. Le Guin think of writing it from the husbands point of view rather than the wives so we can understand the way that he felt turning into human?

Setting and Context: The way that the husband was described using the context of the wife’s emotions and point of view was written in such a great way. It was the best thing that was written because we still understood especially from the transitioning part of the piece it was descriptive in the type of shame he had in turning into a human from his heading being hung low. Also, the description of the settings at the end was very helpful with having the reader see the actually events while reading it.

Dialogue: The way the dialogue was written gave them a very human-like vibe making the reader think they’re reading about a human marriage rather than werewolves. It’s also very constant with how it is written, the way that it was mainly about the wife and husband throughout with a sprinkle of children and her sister so the story can have some sort of dimension.

Was the singing actually the pack howling together?

Character: Did the sister have a feeling something was wrong as well or did she just happen to walk in on him becoming human in front of her sister?