Obsession and Love

The author has written the novel from the first person point of view of the unnamed wife character in order to grant the reader access to and immersion within her obsessive state of mind. Over the course of the novel, the first person narrator’s manner of seeing and describing her relationship with her husband drives the narrative tension, conflict, and pacing. Indeed, she opens the section “Monday, six days earlier,” with the lines, “I’m in love with my husband. Or maybe I should say: I’m still in love with my husband” (5, Ventura’s italics). Although the narrator has been married to her husband for almost 15 years, her feelings for him are as passionate as when they originally met. In spite of her intense affection for her husband, the narrator believes that “Passion is inappropriate,” and that she therefore must restrain herself...