She is mastered by her husband: controlled in every way. She is nervous and fearful. Only the tigers she embroidered are untouched by fear; they are not terrified, captured on the cloth. But Aunt Jennifer, we learn, deals with it for the remainder of her life—in that her "terrified hands" are finally at peace only when she is dead infers that she is never free of her terror in life: "Uncle" outlived her; her only release was death.