Colette’s short story The Hand gave me a feeling of the romance that the new bride had towards her husband, but as the story progressed I began to dislike the wife because I felt as if though she was being to critical about her husband, and though she might of gotten married way too soon. Especially because Colette lets us know that the husband had just been widowed.
The whole meaning of the story itself is revealed at the end when the woman ‘humbly’ reaches out to her husband’s hand and despite of how horrified it had been the night before she gives it a kiss. The kiss reveals that the wife is after all truly in love with her husband. Colette uses imagery to make her point. The horrifying image that the wife gives us of her husband’s hand symbolizes that ugly moments that the couple might have in the future because they truly did not know each other before getting married. It also symbolizes that, for the wife, she is willing to put simple defects of her husband aside in order to love him till the end of time.
Even though I was a bit upset at the wife for thinking that her husband’s hand was horrific, I was proud of her to kiss her husband’s hand as a sign of her true feelings towards him, but I wonder what would have happened to their relationship if she would have spoken up about her feelings about her husband’s appearance? Twenty years from now, I wonder how she would describe her husband’s hand.
