“Ellen and Adelaide were both there: they felt it a duty—but neither of their husbands had come.”
The story opens at a funeral for a father. The siblings have all arrived, but their respective spouses came up with various excuses to excuse their presence. Ellen and Adelaide are sisters and in addition to their husbands not coming to Denver for the funeral, neither has the wife of their brother, James. This quote appears quite early in the story, and it is the first appearance of the word “duty” but far from the last or only. In fact, “duty” will recur seven more times, enough to indicate it is a significant thematic element. The implication of its use here strongly suggests that the sisters’ appearance at the funeral of their father is not of any deep love or emotional bond of any kind. This “duty” they feel they have performed becomes the key by which the meaning of the story is decoded.
“I have no children, Mr. Frankland. I have two daughters and a son. These three grown persons here, grown up, married, having children of their own—or ought to have—were my children. I did my duty by them, and they did their duty by me—and would yet, no doubt. But they don’t have to. I’m tired of duty.”
The real “duty” which the siblings have felt a need to fulfill is showing up to make sure they get their fair shares of their father’s inheritance. The tables are shockingly turned on them, however, when their mother reveals that the will was changed to leave her everything. Things are not really as bad as that sounds, however, as their mother’s money skilled management of the estate means they will all still head back to their homes pocketing an impressive inheritance. The three mentions of the word “duty” are the last in the story. Mrs. McPherson has made her point. And yet the story is only about two-thirds done by this point because she has other points to make.
“Are you—are you sure you’re—well, Mother?”
By this point, Mrs. McPherson has thrown off the mourning cloak and veil in which she made her dramatic entrance. The odd sort of striptease revealed “a well-made traveling suit of dull mixed colors” beneath. The description of the clothing is no mere fashion term; it is a meant to be literal. She stands before her offspring as a 50-year-old widow who has five-thousand dollars to “play with” (equivalent to around $160,000 in 2022) and plans to play with it by traveling around the world. Her daughter’s question is still the polite way even today of suggesting the presence of a mental disorder. Ellen voices it out loud, but her brother and sister have all been thinking the same thing. Ever since she announced that the will was changed, they have all treated her as though she is at the very least too intellectually deficient to fully comprehend the situation. With the further revelations that she did not need to inherent wealthy from a dead husband, but actually created it herself while her husband still lived, the story shifts thematically from expectations of duty to expectations of low intellect as qualifications for being a good wife. Ellen’s question subtly hints at how gender bias against women is just as prevalent among many women as it is among most men.
