One of the most important themes in the story is the American wife’s embrace of traditional gender norms. The protagonist in the story is a woman who faces constraints to expressing and embracing her femininity. From the beginning of the story, the wife is unhappy. Notably, while her husband, George, is named, the wife’s name is never stated. She is referred to as “the American wife,” “the wife,” “his wife,” and “the American girl,” implying that she is young and that her identity is limited to her role of wife. 

The wife aspires to traditional femininity: long hair that she can brush in front of a mirror, candlelit dinners with her own silver, caretaking, and being cared for. She immediately likes the hotel owner because he projects traditional, masculine traits in a way her husband, George, does not. He is tall, hard-working, self-possessed, and dignified. His masculinity makes her feel small, but she also likes that he’s eager to serve her. He gives the umbrella to the maid to hold over the wife as she looks for the cat, and he asks the maid to deliver the tortoiseshell cat to her at the end of the story.