A literary essay on "The moving finger" by Edith Wharton

The moving finger is a story written by Edith Wharton, which is about man who had 2 wives, the first one´s death left him burnt, very devastated, on the other hand,  the second one´s death was even worse, because the second wife was the one who renovated him, they fitted perfectly. This fellow called Ralph, has two Friends, one called Claydon and another one, which it's name was not mentioned but it was the narrator.Ralph was a boy with few friends, which were Claydon , the narrator and one more. His friendship with Claydon, finished when Ralph started to meet with his second wife. In this essay we will deal with the relationship between the main characters, the creation of the portrait and the affinity with the portrait, having always as a reference the three Main topics, Love, Obsesion and control.

The first affair we will analyse, will be the link between Mr Grancy and Claydon. Mr Grancy and Claydon were very good friends, until the time he started to meet with Mrs Grancy, that was when we can start to suspect a possible affair between her and Claydon. This is not mentioned in the story so the narrator leaves it to the reader's point of view. Moreover, Mr Grancy suspected something between them, he asks himself how did Claydon do a paint of how she looks at her, so this let us think she look at them the same way Mr Grancy and Claydon. The second relationship to analyse is the just mentioned between Claydon and Mrs Grancy, possibly there might be a special one, this was the Main cause of breaking such an affair between Claydon and him. INC the third and final accord is the one between Mr and Mrs Grancy, throughout the story, we are told that the had a very intimate contact, they fit each other perfectly, the were the one for the other. His first couple has devastated him and let hm destroyed, and the second Mrs Grancy, came to renew life in Mr Grancy´s soul. All these three relations are connected with the main themes, mainly with two of them as they are love and obsession from both sides, Mr Grancy and Claydon, to Mrs Gancy. We can suspect something happened between Mr Grancy´s friend and his couple, if not Claydon wouldn't have broken such a friendship as the one he had with Mr Grancy, Despite this fact, everything thought about this possible affair are just different points of view. Until the day he dies, Mr Grancy has a suspect on his friend, “I´ve wondered, sometimes, at his knowing how she looked when she and I were alone”.

In order to remember her as good as she was, Mr Grancy decided to ask his “friend”, Claydon to make a portrait of her. Moreover, creating this portrait, brought good memories to him, anyway, it also created a strange obsession from him. Apparently they were so in love with her that they would like to (like a kind of imprisoning) Mrs Grancy´s soul inside the portrait. Mr Grancy has this portrait in his house, because it was from his property, although Claydon has did it. Mrs Grancy was not the only one who was imprisoned, If not Mr Grancy also was a prisoner of its his wife's portrait. He said that if he is getting old, he wants to get old together with his last wife, so through the story we can witness that Claydon done 3 changes, firstly in order to change her appearance to do it similar as the age and look a like that of Mr Grancy, the second change he doMADE is in her face. The face of a woman who knows her husband is dying. The last change, is when Mr Grancy Already died, so it was from Claydon´s part in order to do her younger back again.  “You´re my prisoner now(...)”

The creation of this portrait increases the rivalry between Claydon and Mr Grancy, competing for the control of the portrait. Firstlly, Claydon refused to make changes in the portrait, because it was its masterpiece. “This placed me under the necessity of informing Claydon that the portrait of Mrs Grancy had been requested to him” But afterwards, he accepted just because it was Mr Grancy´s property. After Mr Grancy´s death the narrator communicated Claydon that the portrait, its masterpiece, it was now from its property. Claydon after receiving this news, started to prepare a room especially for her, it is described as a palace where Mrs Grancy´s portrait is in the middle and it is sort of praised by him. This time, is when Claydon does the last modification to the paint, making it young and handsome again as she was.

To sum up, I think that love, obsession and control are the main themes of the story mainly because they put everything together. In addition, we have to find them in the text, how they are portrayed, and analyse them deeply in order to understand the better way as we can the story.