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

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,