The Wife Upstairs

“I wonder if Victoria blames him too.”

Early in the narrative, Sylvia begins to form an empathetic connection with her care recipient, Victoria. Sylvia blames Freddy for ruining her life and wonders if Victoria shares her feelings, though their circumstances are different. This empathic connection opens the door for Sylvia to investigate the circumstances of Victoria’s accident.

“It gives the entire property a bit of an abandoned look. If somebody told me nobody lives here, I would believe it. Especially since there are no lights on inside the two-story house, even though Adam’s wife is supposedly inside. ‘We used to have a gardener,’ he explains. ‘But she… she’s no longer with us.’”

Adam’s use of a common euphemism to describe death (“no longer with us”) foreshadows the discovery of Irina’s death and hints at his role as her killer. The abandoned appearance of the house also contributes to the suspense of the story, as haunted-looking settings are a common mystery-novel trope.

“I follow Victoria’s gaze out the window. She’s got a view of the front of the house—of the overgrown lawn and the trees and a small shed. The gate is visible in the distance.”

McFadden’s first mention of the shed is in passing, belying its importance in the narrative. The mention of the shed hints at the revelation of Mack’s body, but this hint will only become clear in retrospect after Sylvia reads about Mack’s murder in Victoria’s diary. Victoria also looks toward the gates of the property, illustrating her desire for freedom from the house and from Adam.

“I get the sense Maggie is reluctant to talk about Victoria Barnett. Which is frustrating, because I get the feeling she’s the only one in this house who might be capable of telling me the truth.”

Sylvia’s belief that Maggie can tell her the truth about Victoria is highly ironic, as Maggie lies to Sylvia later in the novel. McFadden uses irony throughout the text to add depth and texture to the narrative.

“I may be a sensible nurse practitioner rather than a writer, but I can at least use my skills to keep beautiful notes of every detail, so that someday when my children ask how I met their father, I can hand them this book and say: Here!”

Victoria describes her motivation for writing the diary. This is another instance of irony, this time tragic irony, present in the text. She never ended up having children. She intended for her diary to pass to her descendants, but instead, it becomes a tool for Sylvia to use to solve a murder.

“Did Victoria have any inkling of what was about to happen to her? And how would she feel if she knew another woman was sitting here with her husband right now? But I don’t have to wonder about that last one. I know the answer.”

Sylvia frequently asks rhetorical questions in her role as the primary narrator, which creates a sense of uncertainty throughout the novel. This uncertainty adds to the mystery surrounding Victoria and her circumstances.

“I hope things are better for women at the time you’re reading this. Thank goodness there are men like your father to look out for women like me.”

This is another instance of tragic irony in Victoria’s diary. Victoria notes that Adam is a good man who defends women. However, later, Adam became emotionally and physically abusive toward her, illustrating that he is not the man she thought he was.

“It’s all fiction, of course. It’s the life I had imagined with Freddy a long time ago. It’s the happy ending I always wanted to have.”

Sylvia’s fictional and idealized explanation of her and Freddy’s life connects to Adam’s use of fiction and dishonesty. Sylvia concocts a happy life for herself in her lies to Victoria, while Adam constructs a hellish nightmare for Victoria through his dishonesty.

“The truth is, I’m not sure how much money Adam has. He certainly spends like he has a lot of money. Not that it matters to me either way. I’d like him just as much whether he’s rich or poor.”

Victoria frequently states in her diary that money does not matter to her. This is an important detail given that Adam later accused her of being a gold digger and using him for his money, illustrating Adam’s paranoia and disconnection from reality.

“There’s a certain irony to the fact that a woman with such an amazing wardrobe now dresses primarily in sweatpants, T-shirts, and hoodies. Obviously, Victoria was someone who cared a lot about style.”

McFadden creates irony in the example of Victoria’s attire, even using the word “irony” herself. Sylvia thinks that Victoria was obsessed with clothes, when, in reality, Victoria enjoyed wearing scrubs and sweatpants. Adam is the one obsessed with status and appearance, and these sentences illustrate Sylvia’s misunderstanding of Victoria.

“I had thought I would feel relief when he left, but I didn’t. I felt sad that the only man I had ever loved had left. And angry that it was so easy for him to go. He was just waiting for me to give him permission. I thought maybe he would come back the next day, after he had a chance to cool off. But he didn’t.”

Sylvia and Freddy’s relationship is complex, as they share a deeply painful past that drove them apart. Sylvia told Freddy that she wanted him to leave, but his departure hurt her, illustrating her disconnection from her own feelings. While she works to understand the mystery in Montauk, she also works to understand how she feels about Freddy.

“Except he told me on the first day here that all the doctors told him she wouldn’t. Victoria will never get better. She will be like this for the rest of her life.”

Sylvia’s use of the phrase “he told me” illustrates Adam’s dishonesty. Though Sylvia initially sees his statement that Victoria could get better as wishful thinking, it’s really an example of Adam getting caught in the web of his own lies.

“Does he not realize how close we came to kissing last night? Maybe he has the right idea though. It’s better to pretend that it never happened. Because Victoria is watching us. She knows.”

Though Sylvia comes to see Victoria as the victim, she frequently worries about Victoria seeing her connection with Adam as a threat. This contributes to the red-herring approach that McFadden takes to trick Sylvia, and, by extension, the reader, into thinking that Victoria is capable of violence.

“Adam has already opened the door and now Freddy is standing in the doorway. He’s holding a bouquet of flowers. Not roses, like what Adam used to buy for Victoria, but carnations. Something cheap. Not that I should be surprised.”

Sylvia directly compares Freddy to Adam, illustrating their roles as her potential romantic interests. Sylvia is drawn to Adam’s wealth and status, but she later realizes that he used the allure of wealth to manipulate her, just as he did to Victoria.

“He’s extremely particular about how he wants the house and also about how he wants…well, me. When we go out for meals, he insists on approving my outfit. It’s important to him. And if he doesn’t like what I’m wearing, I have to go back in the bedroom and put on something different.”

Victoria’s description of Adam’s controlling behaviors informs the theme of manipulation, as she attempts to justify his troubling conduct and obsession with appearance. Adam hid behind the excuse of being “particular,” when, in reality, he just wanted more ways to control and denigrate Victoria.

“I started writing this for my future children to tell them the story of how I met their father. But if that doesn’t end up happening with Adam, at least this will serve as a reminder to me that even the best relationship can go sour.”

Victoria almost left Adam after he smashed her phone, but she took him back. For the first time, she left room for the possibility of her relationship with Adam not working out, but she continued to misperceive the relationship as a good one that “went sour,” rather than one that was based in manipulation and psychological abuse from the beginning. The tragedy in these lines is that the diary will never serve as a reminder to Victoria, as she needs no reminder of how dangerous Adam is after he pushed her down the stairs.

“He makes a decision and then…he just does it. I wish he didn’t do that, but maybe after he gets used to being married, he’ll get more used to consulting me on things.”

Victoria continued to wish that Adam would change and to offer him grace on his shortcomings, which was not reciprocated. When Adam wanted something to change, he demanded it, illustrating his domineering nature. Victoria instead gave him time to “get more used” to things, illustrating her contrasting gentle nature.

“I have to find Mack. More and more, it feels like he is the missing piece of this puzzle.”

Sylvia is correct; Mack is the definitive missing piece of the puzzle, but not the puzzle of Victoria. Mack’s murder lies at the heart of the entire mystery in Montauk.

“I wanted to throw something at him. The iron was still on the ironing board, and even though I had turned it off, the metal was still very hot. For a moment, I was seized with the urge to pick up that iron and go right for his face. That would teach him a lesson.”

Victoria fantasized about treating Adam with the same violence with which he treated her, and this brief revenge fantasy helps to establish the red-herring trope of Victoria as a murderer. These fantasies also illustrate how candid and honest Victoria was in her diary, even with her less than savory thoughts and experiences.

“For a moment, I thought of that gun up in our closet. I imagined grabbing it out of the closet, pointing it at Irina’s pretty face and pulling the trigger. I might have missed the tree, but I wouldn’t miss at such close range. I imagined her beautiful, smug face exploding in a spray of blood. Of course, I wouldn’t really do that.”

Victoria fantasized again about committing an act of violence, this time a murder that Sylvia briefly thinks she did commit. This further solidifies the red-herring trope and guides Sylvia down the wrong investigative path.

“He seems to trust me at least. Even though I haven’t given Victoria her medications in a week.”

The idea of trust is important in The Wife Upstairs, as trust is scarce in Montauk. Sylvia initially trusts Adam, but that trust dissipates with her exploration of Victoria’s diary, while Adam’s trust in his own abilities as a manipulator leads him to trust Sylvia, believing that she has been taken in by his idealized husband persona.

“She seems better. I should be happy. But everything in this house is giving me a horrible feeling, like I should run away and never come back. Unfortunately, that’s not possible. I’m trapped here. At least until all this damn snow is gone.”

Sylvia’s feelings of dread while in the house intensify as the climactic discovery of Mack’s body approaches. She also shares the feeling of being trapped and isolated in the snow with Victoria when she attempted to leave in the past, further cementing the connection between the two characters.

“Apparently, she was really unprofessional and used to have temper tantrums where she would throw things.”

Maggie’s use of the term “temper tantrums” to describe Victoria’s alleged outbursts at work illustrates how Adam secures his own power by infantilizing Victoria. “Tantrum” is a word often used to describe the behavior of a toddler, and Maggie’s use of it hints that she is parroting Adam’s lies.