Roselily's unnamed husband

One life lesson has been taught to me by my parents, teachers and past experiences, and that is to also put yourself in the other person's shoes. As I read through Roselily in class today, I started wondering what was the husband thinking at the time. Did he actually love Roselily? What does he feel about this marriage? Does it bring him more burden or more freedom? How does he feel about his future wife having a different religion than him? At the end of the story, he "does not look back" when Roselily decided to end her conflicting thoughts and settle with her new life. That is because he also has to think about all of those questions and more. The women he is about to marry are doing it not for love, but because her children and herself are running out of money. He cannot ensure that this marriage is long-lasting or filled with love like an actual marriage, especially when during the marriage the couple is not even staring at each other. 

This two-sided view can really be applied to anything in life. Every conflict that happens can be viewed differently by different people. For example, the cold war, the clash between communism and democracy. While the western world portrays communism as something horrible, full of unfairness and secret police murders, the people who lived in those communist countries views their own world differently. Similarly in communist countries, the citizens are taught to dislike capitalism and the way workers are put in harsh conditions to barely earn a living wage for their families, but as we know it is not always the case and democracy is much more transparent. But the point is that both sides believes that they are right and that they are the victim, and both of them would be right.

Applying this same logic to Roselily, we cannot really say Roselily is the only victim here, the husband can also be portrayed as a victim. While Roselily is a victim of the unfair opportunities which forced her to marry someone for the sole purpose of saving herself and her children from poverty, the husband is also a victim of a society where being white is the ultimate trait. Many colored women chooses white man over other minorities because they are often associated with success, high social status, and wealth in the US. While some minority males might also have these things, the previous precedents of violence caused by racial injustice shows that minority males cannot guarantee safety for the family. Both of them reflect a deep societal problem and that is how POV can bring new ideas into the mix.