In Machado’s “Husband Stitch” the narrator starts off by talking about a boy who is going to be her future husband. She talks about a green ribbon that she always wears on her neck and never lets anyone touch it or take it off. It is a part of her.

Later on in the story, we see her being very submissive to her husband and giving him everything he wants except for letting him touch her green ribbon on her neck. She gives him her body, she gives him everything sexual that he wants and even emotional support, but she doesn’t let him touch the ribbon. At the end of the chapter he finally takes off her ribbon and she says “I feel as lonely as I have ever been” (page 31). As I was reading the chapter, the arising question that kept coming up to my head is why doesn’t she let him touch her green ribbon.

There was a part in the story where she gives birth to her son and her son touches her ribbon, but she doesn’t have  a problem with it because he’s innocent and doesn’t know any better. She says “My son touches my ribbon, but never in a way that makes me afraid. He thinks of it as a part of me, and he treats it no differently than he would an ear or a finger”(page 18). However as he gets older it starts asking her about the ribbon she doesn’t like to answer the question. 

The green ribbon symbolizes something that is hers and only hers. This is something that she doesn’t give to her son or something that she doesn’t give to her husband. She’ll give everything to her husband except for that one thing that represents her and who she is. This is the one thing that she does have control over because she gives her whole body and her life to her husband, but the one thing that she has control over is the green ribbon. This is why at the end when he takes off the ribbon, she feels lonely because she feels like she’s given everything to this man.