Finding Contentment in Mr. and Mrs. Elliot
Ernest Hemingway's "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot" ultimately leaves us with a paradox. From its opening line, the story defines the marriage of Hubert and Cornelia as a marriage of failure: failure to conceive a child, failure to communicate, failure to have good sex. Indeed, the story's opening image seems the perfect metaphor for the marriage as a whole: "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot tried very hard to have a baby. They tried as often as Mrs. Elliot could stand it" (161). The Elliots' marriage is one of unfulfilled desires-of trying as much as one "can stand it", but never achieving success. Nevertheless the story's final line asserts, "they were all quite happy." How can we reconcile the failures of this marriage with contentment? One tactic might be to assert that Hemingway was being cute when he said they were all quite happy, and the reader is expected to infer that they were really quite unhappy. While I acknowledge that Hemingway had a penchant for understatements and paradox, I think the Elliots are in a very real sense content with the state their marriage ultimately finds itself in, despite their unfulfilled desires.
To find out why, we must first clarify who "they" are at the story's close. It isn't simply Hubert and Cornelia-it also includes Cornelia's girl friend from the tea shop in Boston. The presence of this friend has a noticeable effect on Mrs. Elliot from the moment of her arrival-Cornelia becomes "much brighter" and the two of them have "many good cries together" (163). This friend also takes to typing Mr. Elliot's poetry for him, as she is "very neat and efficient and seems to enjoy it" (164). Cornelia used to type his manuscripts, but she would make mistakes,...
... middle of paper ...
...s poetry, Cornelia prefers the company of her girl friend, and despite trying "very hard" they cannot have a baby. But the couple ultimately finds a sort of contentment, which, while it may not be marital bliss, is a passable substitute. Cornelia, a typical wife, wants someone with whom she can be emotionally close; she finds that in her girl friend. Hubert, a typical husband, want to make a baby; in the story he cannot do that, but finds a substitute act of creation in his poetry. In this way, both get what they want, though not necessarily in the way they might have expected at the wedding. In "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot", Hemingway seems to suggest that "quite happy", while not the same as "very happy", is nevertheless happy enough.
Works Cited
Hemingway, Ernest. "Mr. and Mrs. Eliot." The Short Stories. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995.
Edna Pontellier was on her way to an awakening. She realized during the book, she was not happy with her position in life. It is apparent that she had never really been fully unaware However, because her own summary of this was some sort of blissful ignorance. Especially in the years of life before her newly appearing independence, THE READER SEES HOW she has never been content with the way her life had turned out. For example she admits she married Mr. Pontellier out of convenience rather than love. EDNA knew he loved her, but she did not love him. It was not that she did not know what love was, for she had BEEN INFATUATED BEFORE, AND BELIEVED IT WAS love. She consciously chose to marry Mr. Pontellier even though she did not love him. When she falls in love with Robert she regrets her decision TO MARRY Mr. Pontellier. HOWEVER, readers should not sympathize, because she was the one who set her own trap. She did not love her husband when she married him, but SHE never once ADMITS that it was a bad decision. She attributes all the problems of her marriage to the way IN WHICH SOCIETY HAS defined the roles of men and women. She does not ACCEPT ANY OF THE BLAME, AS HER OWN. The only other example of married life, in the book, is Mr. and Mrs. Ratignolle, who portray the traditional role of married men and women of the time. Mr. Pontellier also seems to be a typical man of society. Edna, ON THE OTHER HAND, was not A TYPICAL WOMAN OF SOCIETY. Mr. Pontellier knew this but OBVIOUSLY HAD NOT ALWAYS. This shows IS APPARENT in the complete lack of constructive communication between the two. If she had been able to communicate with her husband they may have been able to work OUT THEIR PROBLEMS, WHICH MIGHT HAVE MADE Edna MORE SATISFIED WITH her life.
In the end, readers are unsure whether to laugh or cry at the union of Carol and Howard, two people most undoubtedly not in love. Detailed character developments of the confused young adults combined with the brisk, businesslike tone used to describe this disastrous marriage effectively highlight the gap between marrying for love and marrying for ?reason.? As a piece written in the 1950s, when women still belonged to their husbands? households and marriages remained arranged for class and money?s sake, Gallant?s short story excerpt successfully utilizes fictional characters to point out a bigger picture: no human being ought to repress his or her own desires for love in exchange for just an adequate home and a tolerable spouse. May everyone find their own wild passions instead of merely settling for the security and banality of that ?Other Paris.?
Paxton, Nancy L. "George Eliot and the City." Trans. Array Women Writers and the City.
Love caused his logic and sensibility to fail him, and provoked him to commit monstrous acts that destroyed many lives. Through analysis of “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood, it can be concluded that one of her many intended lessons was to show the value and the powerful effects of love. Atwood successfully proved this lesson by using powerful examples of both successful and disastrous relationships to illustrate the positive and negative effects of love. Atwood truly demonstrated what it is like to follow your heart.
T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. ed. M. H. Abrams New York, London: Norton, 1993.
During exercise, many changes occur in the body to adapt to the added stress. Two of these changes are heart rate and blood pressure. Heart rate is the number of times a person’s heart beats in one minute. A normal resting heart rate is between 60 and 100. Each person has a maximal heart rate that estimated equates to 220 minus their age. Therefore, as the person ages, the estimated maximal heart rate decreases. Blood pressure is the measure of force against the arterial walls from blood as it passes through. It can further be broken down into systolic and diastolic pressure. Systolic blood pressure is the pressure during left ventricle contraction and is read as the top number of blood pressure. Diastolic pressure is the pressure in the arteries while the ventricles are filling in between heart beats and is read as the bottom number. A normal blood pressure readings is a systolic number between 90-120 and a diastolic pressure between 60-80 (Kenney, Wilmore, & Costill, 2015).
Hemingway has created a situation where she is forced to depend on him because she is a young, immature, girl in an adult situation. It is when the American tells jig that “we will be fine afterward. Just like we were before, it is the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy” that she realizes nothing will ever be the same no matter what he says. During one discussion she says “we could have everything” the man agrees, then she says “no we can’t it isn’t ours anymore and once they take it away, you can never get it back.” He says “But they haven’t taken it away” and her response is “we’ll wait and see.” The American doesn’t realize that at this point she has discovered that if he cannot love her and be happy while she is pregnant how he will ever truly love her as much as she loves him. According to Robert Barron many critics believe that the couple’s relationship has a bleak and ultimately poor ending (Barron). The older waiter in “A clean, Well-Lighted Place” is dealing with a similar situation when a wealthy old man who is a regular at the café he works at comes in after a failed suicide
· I predict that my maximum heart rate will be around 205 BPM, this is
Investigating the Effect of Exercise on the Heart Rate Introduction For it's size the heart has the huge capacity of pumping large amounts of blood, in the average adult's heart beats 60 to 100 times a minute, pumps between 70ml and 100ml of blood with each beat, circulates 5 to 6 litres of blood around the body per minute and about 13 litres of blood per minute during vigorous exercise. The heart will beat more then 2.5 billion times during an average lifetime. This investigation will be looking at the effect of exercise on the heart rate. Aim The aim of this investigation is to find out how exercise affects the heart rate, using research & experimenting on changes and increases in the heart rate using exercise. Research â— The heart The normal heart is a strong, hardworking pump made of muscle tissue.
Heart is an organ of the cardiovascular system. Heart is responsible for supplying oxygen to all parts of the body. The heart is about the size of a clenched fist. It is located just to the side of the centre of the chest. It is surrounded by a protective membrane called the pericardium. The heart is divided into left and right sides. Heart is made up of muscle and it has walls. It contacts to pump blood into the blood vessels and all over your body. The heart beats to maintain the blood circulating. The heart beating leads the cardiac cycle and which pumps blood to the cells and tissues of the body.
The human heart has four chambers, the right atrium, left atrium, left ventricle, and right ventricle. The human heart has a ton of amazing features. The normal heart rate for adults is 120/80. The human heart weighs twelve ounces and beats at seventy-two beats per minute it is the size of a human fist. Its blood flow has many functions and is extremely vital to our bodies. We would not be able to survive without our heart. I will talk about the functions of our heart and the blood flow of our heart. I will go in detail to let you know things you probably have never heard. Our heart, its four chambers, and blood flow are very interesting and vital to our well-being. Many things can ruin the process of the heart and the way that it works. I will talk about all of the ways that ruin it and I will cover the valves of the heart as well, which are important to the blood flow of the heart.
The writers of Much Ado about Nothing, Wuthering Heights, and A Streetcar Named Desire all incorporate conflict in relationships as reoccurring theme in their texts. There are a number of different forms of relationships in the texts such as marital, romantic and family relationships and they are all presented with complexity by the authors as their opinions on the subject matter will be influenced differently due to the era they live in and their personal experiences. For example, in Much Ado about Nothing marriage is a means of creating a happy ending which is typical in Shakespearean plays but it is also a means of social advancement similarly to Wuthering Heights where couples married to either maintain or advance social class or property and not necessarily because they loved each other, Catherine openly says she wants to marry Edgar because “he will be rich”. In contrary marriage in A Streetcar Named Desire is a means of survival for Stella and Blanch having “lost Belle Reve”.
Women in the nineteenth century had the expectation to marry men with high social status and wealth, rather than from love or security. Austen’s perspective is that marital contentment is purely a matter of choice. Moreover, in a conversation in the novel about a woman’s place in society with Captain Wentworth, Mrs. Croft responds, “I hate to hear you [talk] … as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures” (Austen
Before the major upheaval occurs Jane Austin gives us a glimpse of what social life, the class distinction, was like through the perspective of Ann Elliot. Ann is the second out of three daughters to Sir Walter Elliot, the proud head of the family (Austen, 2). The Elliots are an old landowning family that seems well known in the upper echelons of British society. The most important piece of background we are presented with as central to the plot of the story is that eight years prior to the setting Ann was engaged to a man she loved, Frederick Wentworth. They were soon engaged, but her family along with mother-like figure, Lady Russell, soon persuaded Ann that the match was unsuitable because Frederick Wentworth was essentially unworthy without any money or prestige (Austen, 30). This piece of background echoes exclusivity among the upper classes of Britain. In that time it would seem unacceptable for a girl like Ann with a family like hers to marry or even associate with someone not of ...
The Effect of Exercise on Pulse Rate What is a Pulse In Physiology, a pulse is where there is a recurring opening out of the biggest blood vessels (Arteries). This is a consequence of a coherent flow of blood being propel around the body. The muscle that is responsible for this surge of blood is the Heart. I know that by taking 220 and subtracting your age you can find your maximum pulse rate, because your muscles rely on oxygen it is important that I understand how oxygen is transported to the bodies cells.