Analysis of the "Judges Wife"

Isabel Allende incorporates many of the common elements of fiction writing in her short story, “The Judge’s Wife;” most of all, she uses intense imagery to create the background setting as well as her story’s main characters. Considering the story’s setting and characters, it’s interesting to note that there never appears the typical “shootout” confrontation a reader might expect. In spite of this, it’s doubtful anyone would come away from this story with a sense of boredom, which is unusual in today’s world of short attention spans and in-your-face action.
“The Judge’s Wife” is set in a rustic Latin-American town that’s just large enough to have a town square, but small enough so that none of the town’s inhabitants are ignorant to the drama this story entails. Allende gives no explicit details about the town besides the fact that there is a courthouse, a bank, and a corner shop owned by a Turkish woman. Instead, she uses her adept skill of image...