Natalia Ginzburg’s He and I
In Natalia Ginzburg’s He and I, what intrigued and puzzled me in equal measure was how the writer has gotten used to the mediocre state of her marriage. She vividly paints the picture of a single-sided relationship where the woman is underappreciated. She plays second fiddle to her indifferent husband and relies on his validation and approval. The inequality that characterizes this relationship is evidenced when the writer points out that “My tidiness and untidiness are full of complicated feelings of regret and sadness. His untidiness is triumphant. He has decided that it is proper and legitimate for a studious person like himself to have an untidy desk” As a result of this broken relationship, the writer undervalues herself and doesn’t think of herself as having great taste, being intelligent or useful for a lot of things.
The writer makes use of first-person narration as though she was narrating to either herself or an audience. Her frequent use of “I’ to continually refer to herself makes the narrative personal and establishes trust with her audience. This technique makes the story relatable as one can easily empathize with her. She also utilizes elements of symbolism to make her point easily understandable and stir up the readers’ emotions. This is seen when her husband referred to her as a “great strong fat friar-one of those friars who devour soup made from greens in the darkness of their monasteries.” The patience in her tone is, however, astounding considering the content of her narration. Her paragraphs follow a similar pattern where they begin by revealing the husband’s preferences, followed by the writer’s take and role concerning her husband’s likes and dislikes. This emphasizes how her views are never taken into account and her
The reflective ending was the highlight of my reading as it provided crucial background information to understand the narration better. She contrasts her current predicaments to a time when she and her husband ” were two people who conversed so politely, so urbanely, as the sun was setting; who chatted a little about everything perhaps and about nothing; two friends talking, two young intellectuals out for a walk; so young, so educated, so uninvolved, so ready to judge one another with kind impartiality; so ready to say goodbye to one another forever, as the sunset, at the corner of the street.” This ending is very surprising as it points out how Ginzburg had to endure living in her husband’s shadow for twenty years, even though a lot of tender affection characterized the start of their marriage.