Today, women assert their positions in politics and science, gain roles as society's leaders, and fight for their dreams. The lives of female politicians like Senator Hilary Clinton, or of world-renown writers like Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison reflect the changes of women's roles in our society. However, in the past, women lived in male-dominated societies, and were controlled by men. They did not have a voice of their own, nor the right to vote, or access to higher education. Yet the desire for freedom in them never faded. That is shown in the story "Astronomer's Wife". Kay Boyle painted the awakening of Mrs. Ames, who changed from being timid and sad to more confident and happy.
At the beginning of the story, Boyle showed us the life of Mrs. Ames as a subservient wife. Her life was a routine, "beat by beat" "without reflection". It never changed. She was like a puppet, more like a machine: " left, left, left right, right, right . clean, busy, kind" (Boyle 58). Everyday Mrs. Ames completed her chores, cleaning up after her husband, while he "lingered in bed [or] sat upon the roof [or] wandered down the pathway- (58, 60). He did not have high respect for her. "There's a problem worthy of your mettle!" (59), he had said when she was showing the plumber the clogged drains. Yet Mrs. Ames quietly endured her husband's attitude, and her own sufferings. She had not realized the values of herself. Thus, she went through life with a sadness that pervaded her entire being, "her eyes were gray, for the light had been extinguished from them. . her yellow hair was still uncombed and sideways on her head" (58). With poetic prose, Boyle successfully portrayed Mrs. Ames" life in the shadow of her husband, the astronomer. He was "the new arching wave", and she was "the undertow that sucked him back" (58). She was treated as an inferior, met often by her husband's silence rather than encouraging words, and felt like one.