The Reference of Mrs Hale as Clotho the Spinner
Humanities
Summarize the following:
Mrs. Hale embodies the qualities of Clotho the Spinner, the sister who spins the thread of life. Mrs. Hale subtly suggests that Mrs. Wright is not the sole agent in the death of Mr. Wright. On the surface, Mrs. Hale’s ungrammatical reference to that event, “when they was slipping the rope under his neck”, can be attributed to improper subject and verb agreement, which is not uncommon in certain regional dialects.
However, the use of the plural pronoun and singular verb subtly suggests the involvement of more than one in a single outcome, and it foreshadows the conspiracy of the three women and their efforts to control the outcome or the fate of all characters. Furthermore, the information concerning the domestic life of the Wrights is supplied, or spun, mainly by Mrs. Hale; she describes Mr. Wright as “a hard man,” and, with her recollections of the young Minnie Foster (now Mrs. Wright) as “kind of like a bird” (82), she establishes the connection of Mr. Wright’s involvement in the physical death of the canary and spiritual death of his wife. The condescending manner in which the men joke about the women’s concern regarding Mrs. Wright’s intention “to quilt or just knot” the quilt evokes a defensive remark from Mrs. Hale in which she hints that it is unwise to tempt fate; she asserts, “I don’t see as it’s anything to laugh about”. Finally, by “just pulling out a stitch or two that’s not sewed very good” and replacing it with her own stitching, Mrs. Hale symbolically claims her position as the person who spins the thread of life.
