Wifedom

Nella’s journey of self-discovery in the novel largely focuses on how her definition of what a fulfilled woman is grows from the sole social expectation of “a wife” to idea that a woman can be independent of a husband and happy being completely self-sufficient.

At the beginning of the novel, Nella has just gotten married and moved from her countryside home to live with her new husband in Amsterdam. Nella clearly has very specific ideas about what she expected her life as a wife to look like: a relationship marked by sex, companionship, conversation, and eventually, love. Even when it is almost immediately evident that Nella’s new relationship will not feature any of these elements, she remains persistent in her desire. At the end of Part One, Nella’s dreams are permanently shattered when she discovers her husband, Johannes, receiving oral sex from another...