Harriet Craig's life revolves around objects, not people. She admits that she doesn't love her husband, she abandons her dying sister because she longs to return to her precious house, and she considers visitors to be intruders who disrupt the order of her life.
There is one scene that reveals exactly the type of person Harriet Craig is. She has returned from Albany, where she has spent a couple of days with her sister, who is very ill. Harriet walks into her house and immediately goes to the edge of the living room -- the "holy of holies" -- and looks lovingly at it, taking in every detail of the furniture, lamps, and paintings, as though she'd been gone for years.
She speaks to the servants, but never looks at them. "Get the bags, Maisie, and make sure you close the door behind you" she says, all the while with her back to the girl. She asks the other maid about some things and never looks at her either. The servants are invisible to her. She's more concerned with a vase of roses that don't belong in the room than with anything else; she doesn't even ask about her husband.
In the end, she is left alone in that same room. A vase, which symbolized her strictly ordered life, has been smashed to pieces. The people have all left her and all she has is this room, but it has been defiled so she doesn't even have that to comfort her.
"Craig's Wife" might be a bit melodramatic by today's standards, but the lesson still rings true: "Those who live to themselves are left to themselves."
There is one scene that reveals exactly the type of person Harriet Craig is. She has returned from Albany, where she has spent a couple of days with her sister, who is very ill. Harriet walks into her house and immediately goes to the edge of the living room -- the "holy of holies" -- and looks lovingly at it, taking in every detail of the furniture, lamps, and paintings, as though she'd been gone for years.
She speaks to the servants, but never looks at them. "Get the bags, Maisie, and make sure you close the door behind you" she says, all the while with her back to the girl. She asks the other maid about some things and never looks at her either. The servants are invisible to her. She's more concerned with a vase of roses that don't belong in the room than with anything else; she doesn't even ask about her husband.
In the end, she is left alone in that same room. A vase, which symbolized her strictly ordered life, has been smashed to pieces. The people have all left her and all she has is this room, but it has been defiled so she doesn't even have that to comfort her.
"Craig's Wife" might be a bit melodramatic by today's standards, but the lesson still rings true: "Those who live to themselves are left to themselves."