The Wives of the Dead

In “The Wives of the Dead,” the author creates a morbid mood by using visually descriptive language, or imagery. The story begins at twilight, a time of descending darkness, as the two widows fall deeper into their agony of loneliness. The evening settles in with fog and rain, as if the world were smothering the sisters’ home with sorrow. Outside, the visitor’s red lantern glows, “melting its light in the neighboring puddles, while a deluge of darkness overwhelmed every other object” (12).

Later, Mary hears a knock, goes to the same window, and looks out. The skies have parted, and the moon “shone upon broken clouds above, and below upon houses black with moisture, and upon little lakes of the fallen rain, curling into silver beneath the quick enchantment of a breeze” (18). The moonlight suggests a new hopefulness to accompany the good news brought by Stephen the sailor, but uncertainty sets in as Mary watches him leave: Her doubts “seemed stronger or weaker as he alternately entered the shade of the houses or emerged into the broad streaks of moonlight” (21).