In both “Dimension” by Alice Munro and “The Breeze” by Joshua Ferris, the authors address aspects of marriage that impact the characters mindset and actions. Doree in “Dimension” struggles with a marriage that has been altered by the death of her children and the knowledge that her husband was responsible for taking their lives. Her unexplained effort to sustain her marriage is driven by her need to hold on to positive elements from her past and not engage in her current situation. Also in “The Breeze” Sarah constantly battles with her internal feelings about her marriage but cannot inform Jay because of his naivete, this causes Sarah to be trapped in a marriage that is filled with repetitiveness centered in denial. These characters struggle …show more content…
She does this by overlooking hard details that validate the level of destruction their marriage possess. Sarah feels trapped, whereas Jay (her husband) is oblivious to the reality of the situation, causing their mentality and actions to become repetitive, trapping them in the marriage: “She put a hand out to stop him, ‘Jay’ she said. ‘I'm sorry sweets I can't see a movie tonight.’ ‘why not?’ ‘It's to predictable’ she said. ‘aren't you tired of movies?’ ‘all we've done all winter long is go to movies’” (Ferris 5). In this Sarah expresses that these repetitive actions are reflective of the state of her marriage, which is destroying her inside. However, her obligation to her husband is apparent when she says, “i'm sorry sweets” allowing him to remain innocent and forcing her stay in a humdrum marriage. In this short story, Sarah demonstrates that her husband's obliviousness about their marriage, clouds her decision making because she feels responsible for his feelings. The reason that Sarah cannot tell Jay she is through with the marriage is because of the difficult concept of broken love and their marriage ending. Therefore, repetitiveness is used by her as a means of survival to ignore the underlying
All over the world, marriage is one of the main things that define a woman’s life. In fact, for women, marriage goes a long way to determine much in their lives including happiness, overall quality of life whether or not they are able to set and achieve their life goals. Some women go into marriages that allow them to follow the paths they have chosen and achieve their goals while for other women, marriage could mean the end of their life goals. For Janie, the lead character in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, who was married twice first to Joe sparks, and to Vergile Tea Cake, her two marriages to these men greatly affected her happiness, quality of life and pursuit of her life goals in various ways, based on the personality of each of the men. Although both men were very different from each other, they were also similar in some ways.
Stepping into a new life with someone is difficult enough, but if you step into the marriage with unrealistic expectations (which vary among couples) you’ve set yourself up for great conflicts. In “The Myth of Co-Parenting” and “My Problem with her Anger,” both Edelman and Bartels are at a disadvantage due to the expectations they’ve created. Everything in their marriages is going in a different direction, and nothing is parring up with their original expectations. They’ve seen marriages they admire, and also marriages on the other side of the spectrum. To better phrase this, both authors allow expectations to control their mindset in their marriages, but Edelman’s expectations
All over the world, marriage is one of the main things that define a woman’s life. In fact, for women, marriage goes a long way to determine much in their lives, including happiness, overall quality of life, whether or not they are able to set and achieve their life goals. Some women go into marriages that allow them to follow the paths they have chosen and achieve their goals while for other women, marriage could mean the end of their life goals. For Janie, the lead character in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, who was married twice, first to Joe sparks, and to Vergil Tea Cake, her two marriages to these men greatly affected her happiness, quality of life and the pursuit of her life goals in various ways, based on the personality of each of the men. Although both men were very different from each other, they were also similar in some ways.
While reading these two novels by Zora Neale Hurston, I noticed several metaphors, ideas, and lines that she uses in both texts. I think that the almost parallel lines quoted above are particularly telling of the way that these two novels relate in their depictions of male attitudes towards women and the relationships that exist between the husband and wife characters. Janie's marriage to Joe Starks in Their Eyes Were Watching God and Arvay's marriage to Jim Meserve in Seraph on the Suwanee both operate under the rubric of the male figure's ideas about what marriage and women should be and do. Within both of these marriages, the husband feels his wife is a possession that is to be provided for and cherished, yet not necessarily to be communed with. Joe embodies this sentiment throughout his marriage with Janie, placing her on a kind of pedestal where she can be seen, but not heard. Jim establishes his marriage under similar pretenses and verbally reiterates them throughout the novel, yet seems to evolve past them in a certain respect as he urges Arvay to take an active role in their love. In their patriarchal positions of authority, both Joe and Jim see themselves as wise, as "understanding ten things," whereas they view their wives as stupid and ungrateful, as unable to "understand even one thing."
...es clear that women are able to maintain their agency even when it seems impossible. They may not be able to make huge changes in their lives but the agency they do have allows them to manipulate situations in their favor and/or ensure their voice is heard. This fact is clear through Janie’s internal and externa rebellions in Their Eyes Were Watching God and Mrs. Ramsay’s ability to change views and her choice of language in To The Lighthouse. Overall, this demonstrates the issues with agency for wives. They often find themselves in an oppressive relationship that makes it difficult to sustain their agency, thus they must be creative in their choices in how they remain active agents. This issue is common in modernist narratives and beyond. It is a topic that needs to be explored in literature so it can be explored in the real world with real world consequences.
In “The Yellow Wall-paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the unnamed female protagonist is going through a rough time in her life. (For now on, this paper will refer to this unnamed character as the “the narrator in ‘Wall-paper,’” short for “The Yellow Wall-paper. The narrator is confined to room to a room with strange wall-paper. This odd wall-paper seems to symbolize the complexity and confusion in her life. In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard must also deal with conflict as she must deal with the death of her spouse. At first there is grief, but then there is the recognition that she will be free. The institute of marriage ties the two heroines of these two short stories together. Like typical young women of the late 19th century, they were married, and during the course of their lives, they were expected to stay married. Unlike today where divorce is commonplace, marriage was a very holy bond and divorce was taboo. This tight bond of marriage caused tension in these two characters.
Helen is a disgruntled housewife, she doesn’t support Harry in his plans to create a safe haven inside of the cellar. When Harry attempts to set a plan in motion, she seems to be against him and proceeds to scold him. The scenario of Karen, their daughter being ill, may have contributed to her attitude towards Harry. Unable to come to a unanimous decision on the appropriate approach to handle Karen’s illness and as well as the ongoing crisis around them, they foster a bitter attitude towards one another. According to the authors Thomas N. Bradbury and Frank D. Fincham there is a reason for that. It states that… “One explanation for this apparent gender difference is that, compared to husbands' attributions, wives' attributions are rooted more firmly in the events and circumstances of the marriage. If wives' attributions are indeed more accurate or well developed representations of partner behaviors, then their attributions will be linked more closely to the behaviors they display in interaction when discussing some of those partner behaviors.”(Bradbury and Fincham 574). All things considered, Helen’s and Harry’s portrayal cast their marriage under the ‘dysfunctional marriage’ category.
A History of Marriage by Stephanie Coontz speaks of the recent idealization of marriage based solely on love. Coontz doesn’t defame love, but touches on the many profound aspects that have created and bonded marriages through time. While love is still a large aspect Coontz wants us to see that a marriage needs more solid and less fickle aspects than just love.
“Like a river flows so surely to the sea darling, so it goes some things are meant to be.” In literature there have been a copious amount of works that can be attributed to the theme of love and marriage. These works convey the thoughts and actions in which we as people handle every day, and are meant to depict how both love and marriage can effect one’s life. This theme is evident in both “The Storm” by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman; both stories have the underlying theme of love and marriage, but are interpreted in different ways. Both in “The Storm” and in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the women are the main focus of the story. In “The Storm” you have Calixta, a seemingly happy married woman who cheats on her husband with an “old-time infatuation” during a storm, and then proceeds to go about the rest of her day as if nothing has happened when her husband and son return. Then you have “The Yellow Wallpaper” where the narrator—who remains nameless—is basically kept prisoner in her own house by her husband and eventually is driven to the point of insanity.
Marriage can be seen as a subtle form of oppression, like many things which are dictated by social expectations. In Kate Chopin’s The Story of An Hour, Louise Mallard finds herself in distress due to the event of her husband’s death that makes her question who she is as a person. The author cleverly uses this event to create the right atmosphere for Mrs. Mallard to fight against her own mind. As the short story progresses, we see that Mrs. Mallard moves forward with her new life and finds peace in her decision to live for herself. This shows that marriage too is another chain that holds oneself back. Not wanting to admit this to herself, Louise
Devotion and compassion toward one another, a core reason why many relationships these days work out and last a lifetime. Trusting someone is essential and basically the backbone to all relationships. Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust is a satirical novel that involves the story of Tony Last and his wife, Lady Brenda. Tony is more in love with his house, Hetton Abbey, than with his wife. Brenda, bored with Tony and his apparent desire to live in the past, being the lord of the manor type of person, that she turns her attention to John Beaver, a twenty-five year old socialite. The personalities and character traits of Tony and Brenda contributed to the end of their relationship. Pompousness, conceit and the actions motivated by these traits affected their lives in and outside of their marriage.
While it has traditionally been men who have attached the "ball and chain" philosophy to marriage, Kate Chopin gave readers a woman’s view of how repressive and confining marriage can be for a woman, both spiritually and sexually. While many of her works incorporated the notion of women as repressed beings ready to erupt into a sexual a hurricane, none were as tempestuous as The Storm.
Marriage consists of love between two people, the strong connection between them, and memories made that the couple will never forget. Despite all of this, it is possible for one person in the marriage — in this case the wife — to begin to lose this feeling. The women feel as if they are held back; tied down to a life they no longer desire. As the women contemplate, they become scared to leave the comfortable life they originally had, for a new life they only previously could dream of. The two wives in The Bridges of Madison County, directed by Clint Eastwood, and “Astronomer’s Wife,” written by Kay Boyle, are continuing to live in a marriage they no longer want. When both women are deserted emotionally and physically by their husbands, the
Waite, J. Linda. “Social Science Finds: ‘Marriage Matters.’” Read, Reason, Write. By Dorothy U. Seyler. Ed. Emily Barrosse. 8th ed. New York: McGraw, 2008. 566-57. Print.
- Noller, Patricia; Feeney, Judith; Understanding Marriage, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2002, Chapter 6