"The Silent Wife" Literary essay

In the book "The Silent Wife", the main character, Jodi, goes through a lot of injustices as a wife, and even after they split up. She constantly provided for her husband and believed in him while he was broke and working on his first project. Even with her constant love and support, her husband, Todd, takes away their home and money when he's forced to get married to his latest mistress after getting her pregnant. Jodi had to suffer while he went out and consistently cheated on his wife, then has to suffer even more when he's done with her and ready to move on the the next person to cheat on. Even when her friend springs the idea of an assassination on her and when Jodi goes through with it, she still hasn't gotten justice. Jodi has tried to be a good wife all her life to an ungrateful husband, then is forced to suffer even more when Todd takes away all stability in her life and plans to not do spousal support or give alimony.

One of the biggest injustices committed against Jodi is Todd's constant cheating. Before the floozy Todd was forced to marry, he still constantly cheated on her. It was pretty obvious with the going outback with the friend's wife and such. Jodi knew about all of his affairs, yet never divorced him. She reasoned (correctly if I might add) that if she becomes a point of stability, then Todd will never leave her. She was such a good wife that would never divorce him even with all the affairs.

Even with being such a good wife, Todd quite easily moves on. The worst example of this is when he discovers that because they had a special type of marriage, he wouldn't have to pay alimony and he becomes ecstatic. You can obviously see that he was attached to her as a point of stability, not as a person. He just shifts that stability to his floozy, Natasha, and then starts to cheat on her, too. He even tried to get her evicted and was going to cancel her credit cards without even telling her. He gives her a month to move out. One month to completely change her life. He takes all of the things that could give her even a sense of stability because he doesn't want to spend any money on someone he was married to for twenty years. These are all obvious injustices that Jodi has had to deal with.

In conclusion, Todd is a horrible person. A women he "loved" for twenty years now means nothing to him. He's prepared to take all their money and house because he can't be bothered to support her. She was a great wife while he couldn't be bothered to be even be a smidgen of a decent husband. Even him being murdered can't make up for all the injustices done against her.

Link to original here

Gone Girl Blogpost 2

In the book, Gone Girl, one major plot twist (don't read this if you want to read the book), is when Nick, Amy's husband, discovers that his wife has so much of a sense of judgement that she is compelled to give punishment for anything she deems a crime. In Nick's case, it means faking her death so that all signs point to him because he's a bad husband and he cheated on her. It's seen that she is very thorough and even wrote in a fake diary with 5 years worth of entries in different pens and based on actual events which makes her seem innocent and abused by Nick. Later in the book, you find out that she has done this with other people and see how her sense of justice is way off.

An example Nick finds is with a guy named Thomas. He was dating Amy and liked her, but then began to cheat on her. She finds justice by inviting him over, having sex with him, making it look like rape, calling the police, then dropping charges. Amy could've put him in prison for a long time and ruined his life. She even hurt her wrists to make it look like she was roped onto the bed. Framing someone for rape is way worse than just cheating on a girlfriend. Technically, she's the criminal in this case for framing someone. Amy believes that this is justice when having her arrested would truly be justice.

Another example of her inane logic for justice is with her friend, Hillary, from high school. Amy had befriended Hillary, which made Hillary popular. Eventually, Hillary became even more popular than Amy. To fix this situation, she tricks Hillary by making her dress like her and tell her mother, as a joke, that she was going to replace Amy. Amy then threw herself down some stairs and got Hillary expelled for being a creepy stalker. Hillary hadn't even done anything wrong, but Amy wanted revenge for Hillary stealing the spotlight. 

In conclusion, Amy's sense of justice is like an abusive cop. It takes a level one crime and makes it punishment for a four, four for a seven, seven for a ten. She claims to be about justice, but it all seems to be revenge based, not justice based. It seems like it would be hard to even claim that she is for justice, because she shows no signs of that.