What is the significance of the ribbon and what happens when her husband touches it?

In Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado, her short story The Husband Stitch there is always a ribbon mentioned that the husband is not able to touch. While reading the story, I wondered what the ribbon could mean and found that it could have many significances. The ribbon served as an example of her relationship. She had a complex relationship with love. Throughout the story, she made a lot of sacrifices for love, and the story kindled from the expressions that a society of marriage and even just relationships.

The ribbon, which is worn on the back of her neck, is worn to remind her husband of loyalty towards her husband and the connection they both have. Despite this, at the beginning, this can be viewed as good because it shows connection, but through the story, it starts to have a different meaning. The ribbon, through the story, starts to have the expectations a wife or even a woman has when being in a romantic relationship. The woman in the relationship is required to complete her husband’s wishes and prioritize her husband over her own self. I can see that she does this when it comes to her and being able to have another child and sometimes satisfying her husband when it comes to sex.

Being in a relationship does require intimacy and is seen as a form of connection you have with your significant other. Having sex and the ribbon is where I saw another symbolism. She mentioned that the ribbon was tied tightly, and the husband stitch meaning having sex always can be an effort but also be painful.

One part of this story that stood out to me was that her husband mentioned that their son would have a ribbon. That could’ve meant a sacrifice that she had to make for her son to come into this world by having a 20 hour long labor

and later she states that her body is not the same anymore. This can be some significance of what the ribbon means throughout the story.

When her husband, at the end, touches the ribbon, he kind of takes off that bond and loyalty she had towards him, and you can see that, in the end, this led to her losing herself and even her identity. Her husband touches it and undoes her ribbon, leading to her death.

 Writing this essay was a little difficult because, in the term “community,” I identified with a lot of communities in my first thought. But then I started to narrow it down, and it looked like maybe I did not identify with the communities I originally thought or have much to say about them. They were either too simple, too short, or just didn’t really connect with me. So I thought about what actually represents me. And out of the blue, the idea came that I identify with my heritage, traditions, and ethnicity. So I thought about the Latino community, but it didn’t feel right, so I chose the immigrant community. This community felt right—I found myself identified with it and knew clearly what I was going to talk about.

Now that I had a topic, it was time to write. When it comes to writing and college work, I’m a procrastinator like most people my age. If you sit me down and tell me to do it, I’m not going to do it until the last minute. So that’s exactly what I did. I wrote my draft in approximately an hour and a half that Wednesday before the workshop on Thursday. But I did not like my draft. I felt like it was missing something. It was a little too political, and for the first time, I actually rewrote my entire essay. I felt like I needed more connection with the audience and a little more of my personal experience because, at the end of the day, it’s my community I’m talking about. So I redid my draft that week, and it felt perfect.

The only bad thing is that I tend not to reread my essays because, again, I overthink them. I start deleting parts, and in the end, I might delete my entire essay. So I turned it in. After that, it was class, and we had a discussion with my friend about an article we were reading. Somehow, the topic of immigration came into play, and I started talking about how, in my essay, I emphasized that immigrants are not only Latinos but also people from different countries outside Latin America. She agreed with that, so I felt proud that I included this in my essay because, to me, it was an important point to make my argument clear about the immigrant community.

But also, when I write, I try to write as if I am talking. Not in a formal, forced way, like I have to write this essay, but in a way that feels natural—like I’m talking to my friends. I want the reader to feel connected, even if they might not relate to the topic I’m discussing, but in some way, they can still feel a connection. That’s what I like about writing these types of essays, and specifically, this one. I do wish we had more time and a more extended word limit because I felt like I had more to say about my community but was limited. However, something I would do differently is maybe not procrastinate and also read over my work. I know that reading over your work is very important because it allows you to judge yourself from a reader’s point of view rather than a writer’s.

The quote that I picked was: “Such people, when they speak of ‘freedom,’ mean the freedom to oppress their kind, and to be savage, merciless, and cruel.” This quote appeals to me because it emphasizes the meaning of freedom back then. Freedom was not actual freedom as it was emphasized. It was more oppressing—the kind to have no mercy and to be cruel towards a specific group of people, which were the slaves. The meaning of freedom wasn’t meant for everyone. It was specifically just for a certain group of people—a group of people who were kept from their liberty and only used for economic work purposes.

What really stood out to me is when the chapter stated that there were three little girls playing around, acting like they were selling each other. This act not only contributes to the quote but also shows that this was normalized for children. The children grew up with this idea that freedom was limited for them.

I feel like this contributes to the current moment because, somehow, in other countries around the world, freedom is also limited. There are still people who suffer from slavery, and again, like the quote states, they do not have mercy and are cruel towards these people. Even now, in the United States and other countries, slavery has basically been abolished. Like I said, there’s still slavery, but there’s also some sort of way that we might not look into it simply. By looking into it more deeply, we can still see that some people do not have freedom. This includes certain people from certain communities, like the Latino community, African Americans, the LGBTQ community, and others, where somehow they find themselves limited in this freedom.

Even if the freedom quoted in the chapter is interpreted to be brutal, the limited freedom that people in these groups experience can be emphasized more gently through hateful words, brutal actions, or, again, words on social media.