Ivette Urbina
Professor McMills
English 102 5859
April 11, 2007
40 Farm Lane
Ames, Nebraska
May 2, 1940
Dear Mrs. Hale,
It’s been so long since I have been able to communicate with you; however, I
am happy that I can take this opportunity to thank you for your distant yet valuable
friendship. I can only hope that you and your family have had the wealth and health that
today I lack. Thirty long years have passed since the death of my husband Mr. Wright,
but I cannot forget the scenes of that very lonely night. I say very lonely because that was
the way life used to be with my husband. As you know he was a “hard man, like a raw
wind that gets to the bone” (952).
You never know where life is going to take you. I used to be a happy girl, full of
life in my young days. People always used to say that I was “real sweet and pretty” (952).
When I was Minnie Foster, life was lively; I even belonged to a choir in the town, singing
was one of my best qualities. In those days I was able to belong to the activities in the
town because my personal appearance wasn’t shabby.
I apologize to your husband for not acting right that morning Mr. Wright was
found dead; I just sat there not even looking at your husband. Most people would not
understand the reason for my murder that night, because my husband was not a threat to
society. You now that “he didn’t drink, and kept his word as well as most I guess, and
paid his debts”(952). My husband was always on the farm and I was always at home.
That night was like every other night he came home and then started getting ready for
bed. However, this time he was restless and he blamed it on the bird I had bought a year
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ago; he said that the bird would not let him sleep. This was not true, for the bird only
sang in the day when the sun was out.
It was very hard to communicate with anyone since there was no party
telephone line in the house or no children;”Not having children makes less work- but it
makes a quiet house” (952). My husband then ran to the bird cage and used his force on
the cage like a lion opening a cage ”looks as if someone must have been rough with
it.”(951). He took the chirping bird out and without any thought he wrung the poor bird’s
neck. How could he do this to a poor creature that only kept me company in a world that
my husband made so dreadful? I was going to bury my bird in the small box you found it
in; however, as we went to sleep that night, I could not sleep next to a man that had not
only taken away my bird, but had taken away my identity for thirty years.
As I watched him sleep, I could only picture my bird’s last breath, and without a
doubt I knew what I had to do. That night would be the last night that John Wright would
touch anything precious to me. “Killing a man while he slept, slipping a rope around his
neck that choked the life out of him” was the only thing that came to my mind (953). I am
sorry, Mrs. Hale if I have startled you with my revenge, but as I lay here on my deathbed
maybe some of your unanswered questions would be put to rest. I wish that peace would
come to us after this gruesome experience.
Your friend,
Mrs. Wright
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