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“Why did she seem so abstracted? He did not know how he could begin. Was she annoyed, too, about something? If she would only turn to him or come to him of her own accord! To take her as she was would be brutal. No, he must see some ardour in her eyes first. He longed to be master of her strange mood.”
Here, Gabriel expresses frustration because he wants to have sex with his wife but he can tell that Gretta is distracted and not meeting his expectations. He is preoccupied with her curious mental state and is irritated that he does not know what she is thinking. The most revealing component of this passage occurs when Gabriel wishes that he could be “master” of his wife’s moods. This word choice is crucial because it highlights the power imbalance in their marriage as Gabriel wishes that he had dominion over his wife’s thoughts and emotions.
"While he had been full of memories of their secret life together, full of tenderness and joy and desire, she had been comparing him in her mind with another. A shameful consciousness of his own person assailed him. He saw himself as a ludicrous figure, acting as a pennyboy for his aunts, a nervous, well-meaning sentimentalist . . . the pitiable fatuous fellow he had caught a glimpse of in the mirror."
After Gabriel learns that his wife was just thinking of her first love, he becomes upset for two reasons. First, he had just been thinking about her with lust and he feels hurt that, at the same time, she was thinking about someone else. Second, he assumes he looks bad by comparison—that she sees him the same way he sees himself. He views both his appearance and personality with harsh criticism.
