The Angel Over The Right Shoulder Analysis

In modern society, what a marriage is expected to be composed of is a hard working husband that provides for his family and a stay at home wife who settles to raise their children. In the story The Angel Over the Right Shoulder, it is obvious that this family fits into the stereotype. Mrs. James is being torn between fulfilling her role as a housewife and pursuing her dream of becoming a writer. In order to fix her problem she seeks the support of her husband. Mr. James thinks of a plan and proposes it in order to help Mrs. James not only continue supporting the household, but also to give her time to persevere her writing, and she promises to follow it. Although Mr. James claims to be supportive of his wife, his actions are contradicting. He insinuates that she has plenty of time to pursue

her dreams, he also poses as a distraction, neglects to do errands and even gives her a task to complete.
Furthermore, he highlights the idea that she has had a sufficient amount of time to do her writing and he thinks that she is overreacting.

For example when he says, “you have no evils to endure” it implies that she has nothing to worry about throughout her day. Although Mr. James does not know much about handling home duties, he assumes his stay at home wife gets the easy way out. He lets his wife know that all she simply needs to do is set an organized schedule for herself to go by, he also sounds like he knows what he is talking about. What Mr. James does not know is all the errands Mrs. James commits to on a daily basis. We know he does not contribute to helping around the house when Mrs. James states “all I wish is, that you could just follow me around for one day, and see what I have to do. If you could reduce it all to a system, I think you would show yourself genius.” The fact that he thinks this plan will works as easy as it sounds shows that Mr. James is not being considerate and gives the readers a sense that her husband is selfish. Mr. James proves that he has no idea of the struggles that a stay at home wife endures, much less his own wife.
Keeping in mind that Mr. James was the one who had proposed a plan that was going to allow his wife, Mrs. James,

to have two hours to herself nothing stopped him from being a distraction to Mary. Completely aware that Mrs. James hours of study were from eleven in the morning to one in the afternoon her husband still required Mary’s assistance and went on to look for her. Disregarding the fact she was isolated he knocked on her door and said “cannot you come and sew a string on for me? I do believe there is not a bosom in my drawer in order, and I am in great hurry. I ought to be downtown an hour ago.” Not only did he interrupt her, but in a sense he also hurried her by stating that he was already running late. He also declared “is this your study hour? I am sorry, but what can a man do? He cannot go downtown without a shirt bosom.” Referring back to what was said earlier about the roles of society, women stay home to take care of the home and men go out and work for their family. It is hinted that Mr. James believes it is a woman’s job to fix clothing since he didn’t fix it on his own and that is the reason he went and looked for his wife. He did not only need one favor from Mary, but he also needed a glove mended. When she was done with her husband’s demands she then proceeded to her room but only had a half an hour left for herself. When she informed her husband that she had been interrupted not only by him but by their children and he brushed it off and told her that it was not going to succeed the first time and that she must go on with their plan. He then states “I was in a bad case. It may not happen again. I am anxious to have you try the month out faithfully, and then we will see what has come of it.” Notice how he said it may not happen again, indicating that there is a possibility of him needing her help in the future, yet again. I believe if he truly wanted to help his wife in her stressful situation he would have fixed his clothing on his own. If he really didn’t know how to sew he could’ve asked his wife to do it for him before she isolated herself from the house into her room. He could have gone about his little problem in a different manner.
Initially, when Mr. James presented the plan for his wife to have personal time, as a reader you would think that in order for Mrs. James to be able to sit down and write in peace he would be thoughtful enough to pick up the home duties that his wife had not finished, but this was not the case. Instead, he left downtown leaving Mrs. James with neglected duties that she could not forget about. Bridget, their cook, informed Mary that they had no steak for dinner. Mrs. James once again had to pause her writing in order to send Amy, their babysitter, to get some steak for their dinner later that afternoon. We know Mr. James is responsible for this as well when Mrs. James says “Amy, Mr. James has forgotten our marketing. I should like to have you run over to the provision store, and order some beef-steaks; I will stay with the baby.” Again, she is to be responsible and abandon her letter to take care of their baby in order for Amy to go to the store. Because of the fact that Mr. James forgot to purchase food she was interrupted and half of her time had gone to waste when Amy got back.
Aside from Mr. James interrupting Mary during her study hours, and failing to go to the market he shows he is careless in regards to his wife’s needs and invited guests over. “On the next day, Mr. James invited company to tea, and her morning was devoted to preparing for it; she did not enter her study.” Mr. James was well aware what her private hours were, yet he deliberately scheduled guests to come over during her time and she was forced to receive them. He once again shows the readers that he is being disregardful of the plan he had previously proposed. This proves to the audience once again that he is contradicting his words. Although it is known that Ms. James is a faculty wife, and she is expected to plan out events for her husband, the promise she made to her husband is still in action. The only problem with the proposal is that Mr. James is the one not following through with it and the reason for this all ties back to Mr. James being thoughtless by presenting Mary with more tasks.
As previously stated, Mr. James pretends to be concerned for his wife but his actions show us otherwise. If he was honestly trying to help her situation, he wouldn’t have been such a bother to Mrs. James, especially during her hours of study time. Taking into account the fact that it was Mr. James who had arranged the plan, his wife still could not get anything done mostly because of him. Throughout the story The Angel over the Right Shoulder it feels as if Mr. James presented his wife the plan only to go with the flow in order to keep her happy. Not only does he believe his wife is exaggerating, he also distracts her, leaves abandoned tasks for her to take care of and gives her time-consuming responsibilities and for these reasons he shows himself as a phony husband. As a result of Mr. James’ foul actions, Mrs. James decided that writing was not her profession and instead took on the role of a full-time housewife. She probably felt as if she could not do anything else with herself. Well, what else can one do when not even your own partner cares to support your own personal goals?