Jennie is the narrator's sister-in-law. She helps to take care of the narrator and, more importantly, the narrator's newborn baby. She is described as "a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper." She represents the nineteenth-century view of the role of women as housekeepers and child rearers.
The husband of the unnamed narrator, John is a doctor who believes in the "rest-cure," a treatment developed by real-life neurologist S. Weir Mitchell, for women suffering from hysteria. Therefore, he prescribes complete bed rest, not allowing his wife to do anything. John in many ways treats his wife like a child, calling her his "blessed little goose" and "little girl." The character displays the nineteenth-century attitude that women were to behave demurely and remain within the domestic sphere, aspiring only to be competent mothers and charming wives.
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