My Mortal Enemy Character Analysis

Myra, in My Mortal Enemy, chooses to forsake a life of affluence so that she can marry Oswald Henshawe. As the ramifications of her decision set in, Myra increasingly displays her discontent for her reduced social standing and disposable income. She flaunts her wealth to a significantly poorer family by telling Oswald she got rid of his new dress shirts, because she didn’t like the way they looked on him. Oswald's expression shows “bitterness”(Cather, 8) towards his wife for acting superior to the people of Parthia, Illinois. Myra's actions expose her lust for wealth, and her regret in disobeying her uncle's wishes. By marrying Oswald, Myra broke the socioeconomic barrier and escaped the enclosed space of world that her uncle confined her

to. She lived with her uncle in a “fine house… and, had everything: dresses and jewels, a fine riding horse, a Steinway piano” (Cather, 10). She submitted to her uncle’s power, “she was very fond of him, and he knew it” (Cather, 10). The setting of her childhood enclosed her; it was a small space, occupied by less than 1% of the entire population. The luxurious lifestyle afforded to her trapped Myra and persuaded her to acquiesce, at least on the surface, to his wishes. However, we see Myra break out of this enclosed space, when she runs off with Oswald, who was “poor and impractical, a wandering schoolmaster” (Cather, 11). Her uncle's ultimatum that if she married Oswald “he would cut her off without a penny” (Cather, 12) failed to bother Myra, as she opted to marry Oswald anyway. Whether it was defiance or her desire to prove that happiness can exist independently of wealth, Myra chose to marry Oswald rather than continue to be the beneficiary of her uncle's money. Although Myra lived a respectable life with Oswald, she was unable to escape the hold that affluence had on her. Her New York apartment is adequate but not when compared to her upbringing. Although Myra resents her husband and the modest lifestyle he is able to provide, it isn’t until her illness that Myra's unhappiness is truly exposed, when the Henshawe’s lose their wealth and move to a dank shadowy apartment. In her confinement, Myra is forced to face the realities that resulted from her submission to Oswald and acknowledge her regret over the decision to marry him and the subsequent loss of money it brought: “oh the cruelty of being poor; it leaves you at the mercy of such pigs! Money is protection, a cloak; it can buy one quiet, and some sort of dignity” (Cather, 57). The confined apartment she is now subjected to forces Myra to reflect on her life. She subordinated to a man and was forced to follow him into poverty, leaving behind a life of affluence. Although Myra willingly married Oswald in an attempt to escape the confinement of her overbearing uncle, she merely traded one form of captivity for another. With Oswald, Myra lacks the luxuries she had grown accustomed to and once ill, she is relegated to live in an apartment in the hotel that is dark and dreary, a stark contrast to the high ceiling, colorful and open apartment she once lived in. Even in the few instances when she is able to escape her misery, the compact space quickly forces her back to reality: When she has tea “it made her feel less shabby to use her own solver tea things and the three glossy English cups she had carried about with her in her trunk…” (Cather, 59), she attempts to escape the confinement brought on by the small apartment, however the relics of her affluent life return her to her misery. The space overpowers every attempt Myra and Nellie use to forget about the Henshawes socioeconomic reality – “when they [the neighbors above the Henshawes] were in, and active, it was too painful to witness Mrs. Henshawes suffering” (Cather, 59). Myra is restrained to this place that drives her insane; the smallness of the space gives off cruel reminders of the inferior lifestyle she foolishly chose when she married Oswald.
The two stories find conclude by allowing the protagonists to challenge the social norms that formerly kept them subordinate.

Myra, who is dying of illness, escapes the confinement of her stuffy, dark apartment. She refuses to succumb to death in an insubordinate manner. By leaving the apartment and embracing open space, Myra rejects the societal pressure to be a kept woman. Myra did not want to die “like this, alone with [her] mortal enemy” (Cather, 85). Myra wanted to recapture the independence she sacrificed when eloping with Oswald. In leaving the apartment, Myra simultaneously conveys her disapproval for the meager lifestyle that her husband provides for her and the impetus that a woman needs a man to provide for her at all. Myra chose to die alone in an open space – away from the confinement of the hotel walls that served as reminders of her poverty and the marriage that stripped her of wealth and status. She wished to be “cremated and her ashes buried ‘in some lonely unfrequented place in the mountains, or in the sea” (Cather, 83). She wished to be alone once she died, she wanted freedom from quarantining walls and the institution of marriage that had deprived her of affluence and happiness. Myra died “wrapped in her blankets, leaning against the cedar trunk, facing the sea…the ebony crucifix in her hands” (Cather, 82). She died on her own terms, unconstrained by a male, and unbounded by space that symbolized her socioeconomic standing. The setting she died in was the complete opposite of the space she had lived in with Oswald: It was free space amid open air. She reverted back to the religious views of her youth, symbolizing her desire to recant her ‘sin’ of leaving her uncle for Oswald, and thus abandoning her wealth. “In religion , desire was fulfillment, it was the seeking itself that rewarded”( Cather, 77), it was not the “object of the quest that brought satisfaction” (Cather, 77). Therefore, Myra ends back where she began; she dies holding onto

faith, but she is free this time, free from constraints of financial concerns, her uncle and her marriage. Marcus Klein in the introduction of My Mortal Enemy notes that because the money that her uncle would have given to her, had she not eloped with Oswald, was left to a convent, she wants to return to her wealth and religious origins. The convent would give her : “a place of quiet but absolute strength and dignity” (Marcus Klein, XXII), something that she wanted. Myra realizes“ the cruelty of being poor... leaves you at the mercy of such pigs! Money is a protection, a cloak; it can buy one quiet, and some sort of dignity” (Cather, 57). She finds independence and strength by reverting back to her original roots and what was once to be hers. She chooses to die next to her trunk, symbolic of her affluence prior to marrying Oswald, and with a cross in her hand, representing the strength and dignity she finally achieved through leaving the enclosed space of her apartment which reflected her subordination to Oswald that stripped her of wealth. She died in an open space that was free of confinement and socioeconomic pressures. Although, she passed away with her trunk, that signifies the wealth that she lose, she still dies “facing the sea…peacefully and painlessly” (Cather, 82), away from socioeconomic constraints. The open space, unlike the confined apartment, did not acknowledge the socioeconomic or male dominance that constrained her from being free. She finally died, and thus was free from her pain, in an open space uninhibited by socioeconomic or marital constraints. Her will declared that she wanted to be buried “in some lonely and unfrequented place in the mountains, or in the sea” (Cather, 83). This reflects her independence gained through her death and escape from the restricted space of her apartment and married life.
Analogously to Myra, Margaret discovers independence and self-sufficiency through her refusal to live with Mr. Breen. When she arrives at the train station, outside of the enclosed space, the air is “hot and thick. She sat down to wait, and immediately she was damp and grubby” (McCarthy, 130). The parallel between the weather and Margaret’s remorse are obvious. The weather alludes to the impure act that transpired between she and Mr. Breen. There is a forced accountability for her actions that was noticeably absent on the train. Once departing the train, Margaret must enter the real world and face all of her problems; cheating on her fiancée with Mr. Breen, seduced by the allure of money. When she returns to the train she regrets her decisions to share intimacy with Mr. Breen - “Sooner or later, she knew, the law of diminishing returns would begin to operate, and she would cease to reap these overwhelming profits from the small investment of herself she had made.” (McCarthy 131). She wants to leave the confined space of the train that locks her into being with him. “Her one and a half rooms in Greenwich Village gave him claustrophobia, he declared, and when she pointed out to him that the apartment was charming, he stated flatly that it was not the kind of place he liked, nor the kind of place she out to be living” (McCarthy 132). This idea that he is claustrophobic in a small, poverty-stricken apartment demonstrates his need for power through space. Mr. Breen was fine in the small train compartment that was his, but when he goes to Margaret’s apartment the power dynamic shifts and she is in control. Mr. Breen then asks her to meet him at his suite, a confined space that he controls. Eventually Margaret frees herself from the stifling influence of men. She comes to the realization: “Just below the surface of his genial manner, there was an hostility that hurt her. She found that she was extending herself to please him. All her gestures grew over-feminine and demonstrative… I must let go, she told herself; the train is pulling out; if I hang on, I’ll be dragged along at its wheels. She made him take her home early…” (McCarthy 133). Margaret honestly evaluates herself and in doing so is able to realize the inherent confinement and her desire to be free. When she sees Mr. Breen one last time for cocktails, she leaves him and walks “home alone, trying to decide whether to eat in a tearoom or cook herself a chop, she felt flat and sad, but in the end she was glad that she had never told him of her broken engagement” (McCarthy, 133). By withholding the news of her separation from her fiancée Margaret shows her independence from male authority. In walking home alone and having the ability to choose where and what she eats, unlike in the confined train compartment where Mr. Breen’s server catered meals without selection, she was no longer living a life dictated by a man. Like Myra, Margaret found comfort in obtaining independence. McCarthy emphasizes that Margaret still feels “flat and sad” (McCarthy, 133), but she was able to separate herself from being with men for money without pleasure
The two stories The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt and My Mortal Enemy both use space to depict the troubles that face the two female protagonists. Cather and McCarthy brilliantly use enclosed space as a tool to reflect on issues
The enclosed space reflects the feeling of entrapment that the two women faced in subordinating to a male counterpart for a perceived sense of security as well as the socioeconomic comfort of wealth. Myra and Margaret ultimately escape the enclosed space that confines them; the train car and the dark apartment, and in the process rid themselves of male subordination and socioeconomic dependence.