Our Shared Shelf discussion

Her Body and Other Parties is a collection of short stories. Let's use this thread to discuss the short story: The Husband Stitch.

What did you think?
What is your reaction to the story and the characters?
What did you love or hate about this?

I really liked this one.

There was so much to unpack. So many lines that are easily missed or thrown away that lead to this brilliant review of ownership.

Afterwards, everyone believed that she had wished to die, even though she had died proving that she could live. As it turns out, being right was the third, and worst, mistake.

“(If you are reading this story out loud, force a listener to reveal a devastating secret, then open the nearest window to the street and scream it as loudly as you are able.)”

“He is not a bad man, and that, I realize suddenly, is the root of my hurt.”

There is just this soulful determination and anguished acceptance regarding to the woman's ownership of self. Her right to be here, her right to have something that is all her own, her right to own something that she didn't have to give away or hide from the world.

This intrigued me a lot. I'm not sure I understood it. It seems quite subtle. Fragile and strong in the same time.

I understood it as the intrinsic identity, her Self, her core, her secret garden. And at the end it took it away to possess it... 😔 Maybe I got the meaning wrong 🤔 please let me know.

Right. That's what Machado was saying. (view spoiler)[ there was one thing that was all hers that no one could have or own or possess but her. The wife gave everything else away. She was fine with any and all sex positions, she shared her more intimate secrets, from her body she bore a son and gave to him as much as she could even though it destroyed her, she gave, and gave and gave. And the husband still wanted more. Jealous or infatuated with something he couldn't possess fully.

So the ribbon was her last secret. Her last oasis that was all hers. Machado is saying that once you give everything you are no longer a person. You're no longer alive, because alive means you have your own opinions and desires and needs. It cannot all be give away because if you do.. you're no longer you.

The tragedy, impo, comes from the fact that she gave it willingly. (hide spoiler)]

Yes. It was tragic ending. I was yelling in my head "no! Don't do that!" 😔
It is like a hollow shell...

I was interested that she assumed that a daughter would have a ribbon, but not a son:
When the baby is placed in my arms, I examine the wrinkled body from head to toe, the colour of a sunset sky, and streaked in red.
No ribbon. A boy.

Do all women have a ribbon? She mentions 2 others with ribbons in different spots-one around an ankle, one around a finger.

There is also the title "The Husband Stitch". This is a reference to the "extra" stitch that husbands are rumoured to request be put in when an episiotomy or tear is repaired after childbirth so that the vagina heals up more tightly (and which the husband requests and the Dr apparently provides in this story). How does this fit in with the rest of the story? Is this related to the ribbon?

Beautifully written, I look forward to reading and discussing the rest.

I think it takes the reference of all those horror stories about women with ribbons around their necks and really flips it around. There were a lot of stories like that from the time of the French Revolution: a man meets a very seductive woman, they have a passionate night, but she refuses to remove the ribbon around her neck. In the morning he does and her head falls off - meaning that she had been decapitated, and was dead all along. In all these stories, women's sexuality is menacing and a woman keeping secrets is dangerous for the men around her.
In Machado's story it's the opposite. Women's sexuality is controlled by men, since a doctor and a husband can decide, without consulting a woman, to an intervention that will affect her sexual life. The ribbon is not a deep dark secret, it is not a threat to the husband, but he becomes obsessed about it the same, to the point that he will destroy her to find out about it. I would say that in both stories it represents women's sexuality and relation to their own bodies, but in one it is seen as dark and threatening, and in Machado as natural but under threat.

This story was beautifully written and I appreciate the shared insight from this group.