In America, long gone are the days of gender-based marital roles where the man provided for the family financially and where the woman was uneducated, maintained the home and she respected her husband as superior. In today's Western society, education is for all individuals, marital roles are defined by both spouses, and needs are equally important regardless of gender. On the contrary, there are still cultures that value ancient marriage traditions. The protagonist, simply called “the husband,” in Divakaruni's The Disappearance, is a fully developed character who values ​​these ancient traditions still active in his homeland, India; Unprepared to deal with Western culture and unable to respect his wife's needs, this static character is a victim of his actions. The husband initially seems like a flat and stereotypical character, playing the dictator-type husband who pushes his wife away. Controlling behavior is represented through actions such as not allowing the wife to get a job, go to school, or wear clothes that do not meet her approval. He “puts his foot down” when she wants things like that (par.10). Control is shown with phrases such as "he let her have her way, he even humored her" when describing the permission given to his wife to choose the color of the tiles (par.10). He is critical of the way she maintains the house and brings it to her attention, calling her "a careless woman" (par. 20). Furthermore, he expects sex on demand regardless of consent. The husband's selfishness and domination are clear to us, yet the husband is unaware of it. The husband's character takes shape as these behaviors are associated with the traditional Indian culture in which he grew up. With this correlation, her motivations may be… middle of the paper… as “she must have hated me to choose” to give up a life that brought “joy to her face” (par.29 ). These consequences reveal that the victim in this story is the husband. Throughout the story, the husband struggles in America to maintain the traditional Indian lifestyle he envisions for himself. The Western idea of ​​equality and respect for women is something the husband cannot understand and is not willing to. His domineering and selfish behavior, prized in his culture, causes stress in his life, but he remains steadfast in his cultural belief regarding his superiority over his wife. They are not equipped to deal with change; the character of the husband remains static until the end of the story, a victim of his actions. Works Cited Divakaruni, C.B. (1995). The disappearance. Compact Literature: Read, React, Write (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth. 584 - 589