To Room Nineteen

“And if one felt that it simply was not strong enough, important enough, to support it all, well whose fault was that? Certainly neither Susan’s not Matthew’s. It was in the nature of things.”

In a matter-of-fact tone, the narrator suggests that the couple’s love for each other—the “it” of the quotation above—may not be enough to compensate them fully for the sacrifices they make in order to create the ideal nuclear family. Though Susan and Matthew may see this as “natural,” the ironic tone of the story implies that there must be more to a meaningful life.

“(And there was the word faithful—stupid, all these words, stupid, belonging to a savage old world.)”

Perhaps because of the aforementioned lack of surprise in their marriage, Matthew seeks out a casual affair, which Susan attempts to take in stride. In her efforts to appear more enlightened and “modern,” she tries to jettison old-fashioned ideas about morality and fidelity. Still, she cannot help but experience some bitterness about his betrayal, and this leads to yet more questions regarding the purpose of their marriage and her commitment to it.

“It was in the nature of things that the adventures and delights could no longer be hers, because of the four children and the big house that needed so much attention.” 

In contrast to Matthew, Susan is expected to remain tied to—faithful to—the marriage and family. Her role is to relinquish “adventures and delights” for duty and stability. The repetition of “in the nature of things” (see also quotation #2) emphasizes the critique that the narrator implicitly makes throughout the story regarding convention and tradition—namely, that perhaps the “nature of things” is not so natural after all.

“It was now, for the first time in this marriage, that something happened which neither of them had foreseen.” 

Once the youngest of the children are off to school, Susan reacts in an unexpected manner; there are surprises in the marriage, contrary to what was stated previously. Instead of feeling relief and liberation at the children’s absence, Susan feels restless and tense, “as if an enemy was in the garden with her” (2549). She is reluctant—even incapable—of confronting her own thoughts, her own neglected identity, though she now has some time to do so.

“She was possessed with resentment that the seven hours of freedom in every day (during weekdays in the school term) were not free, that never, not for one second, ever, was she free from the pressure of time, of having to remember this or that.” 

Once Susan begins to embrace the notion that her time could again be her own, she finds that the demands of her roles—wife, mother, housekeeper—never cease. “She [is] a prisoner,” she concludes (2551), and her brief flirtation with freedom merely a mirage while she remains shackled to her family and the family home.

“And he [Matthew] listened and said: ‘But Susan, what sort of freedom can you possibly want—short of being dead?’” 

Matthew expresses irritation and dismay at Susan’s need to get away from her responsibilities and externally defined roles. He cannot imagine that there are possibilities beyond the conventional life they lead, much less that a woman might desire autonomy and an identity outside her gendered roles of wife and mother. His statement is also sadly prescient, as Susan ultimately chooses the liberation of death over the demands of her traditional, and inherently limiting, roles.

“The good marriage, the house, the children, depended just as much on his voluntary bondage as it did on hers. But why did he not feel bound? Why didn’t he chafe and become restless?” 

Susan wonders why Matthew doesn’t experience the same kind of restlessness and emptiness as she does. While Matthew never has the opportunity to answer this question directly, the reason is probably twofold: He doesn’t feel bound because he accepts the conventional status quo, but the male role also offers more freedom. Matthew can engage in extramarital dalliances and develop himself professionally in ways that Susan cannot. It is also notable that Susan thinks of “that word bondage” to describe her relationship to her family. Throughout the story, the narrator defines Susan’s prescribed roles in terms of involuntary incarceration or enslavement—a common trope in feminist and proto-feminist literature.

“She was determined to arrange her life, no matter what it cost, so that she could have that solitude more often. An absolute solitude, where no one knew her or cared about her.” 

In contrast to the bondage Susan experiences with her family, solitude represents liberation—a defiance of cultural norms and traditional expectations. Anonymity is priceless; it represents an emancipation from the pressures to conform to her limited roles, as well as potentially limitless possibilities for self-creation.

“She returned to her home and family, with the Welsh emptiness at the back of her mind like a promise of freedom.”

Susan takes a walking tour of Wales in an attempt to gain the solitude and freedom she desires. However, she remains chained to “her duty like a leash” (2556), required to call or receive calls from her family at designated times. She returns home as restless as ever and tempted further by her brush with potential liberation.

“He did his duty, perfunctorily; she did not even pretend to do hers. And he had become like other husbands, with his real life in his work and the people he met there, and very likely a serious affair. All this was her fault.” 

Susan’s inability (or refusal) to perform her designated duties as wife and mother leads to the dissolution of the bonds that once supported the whole enterprise. Without her explicit consent to this conventional arrangement, it unravels, though this does not appear to hamper Matthew in his own personal and professional pursuits.

“Having taken her money and shown her up and agreed to everything, he [Fred] was clearly disapproving of her for coming here. She did not belong here at all, so his look said. (But she knew, already, how very much she did belong: the room had been waiting for her to join it.)”

When Susan finds Room 19 in Fred’s Hotel, she feels almost as if it were destiny that brought her here. Despite the proprietor’s misgivings about the propriety of her presence in his seedy hotel, Susan herself feels welcomed. Room 19 itself is personified, “waiting” with an anthropomorphized desire for Susan to inhabit it. It is no coincidence that the hotel is one in which illicit sexual encounters occur.

“For the most part, she wool-gathered—what word is there for it?—brooded, wandered, simply went dark, feeling emptiness run deliciously through her veins like the movement of her blood.” 

Susan’s time in Room 19 is spent in creative contemplation, in active isolation, and in release from the unrelenting expectations on her time and her identity. The urgency of her need is such that it is necessary for life itself—comparable to the blood that moves through her veins.

“Several times she returned to the room, to look for herself there, but instead she found the unnamed spirit of restlessness, a prickling fevered hunger for movement, an irritable self-consciousness that made her brain feel as if it had coloured lights going off and on inside of it.” 

Once Matthew’s inquiries have disrupted her reverie in Room 19, Susan can no longer find what she needs there. His knowledge of her whereabouts sullies the sacrosanct nature of the room. It is no longer hers alone.