“I hate my wife. I’ll finish her off.”
In the story, “Death by Scrabble”, the man can only think of how much he hates his wife and how he would LOVE to kill her. Although, this story is all about foreshadowing and irony, it still struck me hard. How can a man want to kill his wife, the person that he loves and committed his life to? What has she done to him to make him feel this way?
Marriage is all about commitment- through the amazing times and through the not so amazing times. When you stand at the altar with shaky hands, a rapid heart rate, staring into the eyes of the person you love, and then saying your vows and committing your life in sickness and in health to the other person is a covenant that should never be broken.
Even though the narrator in this story doesn’t want to divorce his wife, he wants to kill her. He wants to see her dead. This is worse than divorce by far. He must have regret, anger, and hatred towards his wife for not being able to do the things that he would rather be doing. In the third paragraph he says, “I should be out, doing exercise, spending money, meeting people. I don’t think I’ve spoken to anyone except my wife since Thursday morning. On Thursday morning I spoke to the milkman.” Three paragraphs later (sixth paragraph) he says, “If she wasn’t around, I’d be doing something interesting right now. I’d be climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. I’d be starring the latest Hollywood blockbuster. I’d be sailing the Vendee Globe on a 60-foot clipper called the New Horizons-I don’t know, but I’d be doing something.”
In those two short excerpts it is easy to see that he is longing for freedom to do his own thing whenever he wants. I get a sense that his wife is holding him back and doesn’t like doing the same things that he enjoys doing like sailing or even meeting people. After some time of never being able to do the things that he likes to do, he can develop a hatred for her and wants to see her dead. He wants freedom.
To flip it around, at the end of the story you see that maybe the wife had the same feelings towards him that he had for her. The very last line says, “I fall to the floor. My wife just sits there, watching.” It is clear that she had no desire to help him-maybe she in fact wanted to see him dead as much as he wanted to see her dead.
Marriage should not be like this. The vows that both people say at a wedding are, “Till death do us part.” This really means that no matter what- no matter if you are bankrupt, no matter if you are a millionaire, and no matter if one person has cancer- you stick it out to the end. You work out every issue with communication and you talk about the issues as they occur. One should never hate their spouse and want to see them dead.
I know from experience that for any relationship to work sacrifice has to be involved. Simply stated- you cannot have your way all the time if you want a healthy, stable relationship. My last relationship didn’t work out in the long run because both of us were not willing to compromise. When I wanted to go take pictures downtown, he wanted to play basketball. We weren’t willing to give up the things that we loved for each other. In a more serious sense, God had to sacrifice His son for us and I had to sacrifice hanging out with the most popular people in school. When we (God and I) both sacrificed something that we loved, we began to have a healthy, stable relationship. Sacrifice is a must in any relationship.
Although I’m not married nor am I in a relationship right now, I will keep this in mind for the future. I will never wish death on any person because as the saying goes, “what goes around comes around” came true for this story. He had wished his wife was dead and with that, he was the one that was dead at the end of the story. When my marriage gets rough, I will think back to my wedding day and how I said “In sickness and in health, till death do us part.” I will always talk every issue out with my husband, never hate him, never wish death on him, and will sacrifice for him so that we may have a healthy, stable, long-lasting relationship.
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