Groom Service Written Response by Shemonty Bernard is the main character of the short story “Groom Service” written by Michael Dorris . His character changed to a great extent throughout the story in positive ways while he experienced a ritual of his culture called groom service. In this process, the groom needs to hunt for the bride’s family to prove himself as an eligible provider. He has to keep doing it until they get impressed and satisfied by the groom. Bernard went through this process. In the first place Bernard was introduced as an unmotivated young boy drawing with charcoal “was busy at nothing”(page 14). During the groom service, he had to go for hunting for his would be in-laws. The process of hunting created motivation in him. The evidence is seen on page 20 where “he thought about hunting [often], how he could have succeeded the times he had failed”. He started to find motivation for something for the first time. Previously he had nothing to be motivated about. Afterwards groom service he found an aim in his life. He understood good hunting skills will earn him a place in front of his in-laws and society. …show more content…
In the beginning, he was an immature person.
He loved a woman named Doris who was a widow, and twice of his age. He thought of her as one “whom he now loved better than he would have thought possible”(page 15). This relationship was only his infatuation. On the other side, he rejected Marie by saying, “I think of her as a little girl, not a wife”(page 14). During the groom service he started to observe Marie. One day he is found as “sItting as composed and shaded as a perfect charcoal sketch”(page 22). He loves to draw, and he imagined her in a drawing. As can be seen he started to find a connection with her. In the end scene of Bernard, Marie served him food, and “slowly and with great emotion he ate”(page 23).This gives us the evidence of their newly made relation. Ultimately he understood the difference between immature infatuation and meaningful
love. Before he was confused with his life. He could not decide between Doris and Marie. He could not find any useful meaning of groom service. He asked his uncle Theodore “What am I supposed to do?”(page 16). He got useful advices from his uncle about life and the groom service . His uncle advised him not to complain and to do best on the groom service. He said, “You need independence, distance, the chance to be a man in a place where you were never a boy”(page 16). Talking to Theodore helped Bernard to understand he has to be mature. Groom service is not a punishment but a chance for him to show his abilities. Taking advices from elders converted his confusions to confidence. Prior to the groom service his opinion about his father was, “He and I never talk serious matters. He’s not of the clan”(page 17). Afterwards groom service he understood his father, Pete better. Likewise him Pete went through the same process. For Bernard “He became another man, an earlier version of Bernard, a fellow sufferer”(page 20). In short he built a better understanding, and relation with his father. He could see his father as an example from now on. It helped him to understand the expectations of his society. Bernard’s character changed in many ways throughout the story, the most evident change was his growing sense of his culture, and society. He began to accept the rights and responsibilities he has as a man in his matriarchal society. Overall he changed from a man to a boy throughout the experience of groom service.
Henry was an extremely lonely nine-year-old boy whose greatest wish was to get a dog. His parents were busy with their work most of the time and it seemed that Henry did not have any friends, perhaps because they moved so often. A dog would have provided Henry with unconditional love - something in short supply around his house - and would have been the perfect companion. The problem was, his parents did not want dog, which would have been another obligation and something else to take care of. As emotionally detached as his parents were, something else to take care of was just not desirable.
Marie Howe’s feelings are expressed after arguing with a man who plays a significant role in her
Love is something that is so beautiful it brings people together, but at the same time it can be the most destructive thing and it can tear people apart. Edmond Rostand's play, Cyrano de Bergerac, is a tale of a love triangle between Cyrano, Christian, and Roxane. In the play, Cyrano helps Christian make a false identity about himself for Roxane to fall in love for. Christian had the looks while Cyrano had the personality, together they could make the perfect man. Throughout the play, you see similarities and differences between Christian and Cyrano’s personality, looks, and who they love.
Marie never hated Lulu, despite the fact that she had an affair with her husband, which resulted in a child who was named Lyman Lamartine. As Lulu got older, she started to lose her eyesight, and eventually went blind. So she had surgery, but she had no way to put the eye drops in that she needed. She applied for someone at the senior’s home that she lived at, and Marie volunteered. Through this Marie and Lulu became great friends. To me, this shows the great love they both had for the same man, that despite what they went through, they were able to look beyond all past troubles and have a friendly
envy his beauty and "feign[…] the appearance of love" for him (Marie 24). Although the king
In The Lais of Marie de France, the theme of love is conceivably of the utmost importance. Particularly in the story of Guigemar, the love between a knight and a queen brings them seemingly true happiness. The lovers commit to each other an endless devotion and timeless affection. They are tested by distance and are in turn utterly depressed set apart from their better halves. Prior to their coupling the knight established a belief to never have interest in romantic love while the queen was set in a marriage that left her trapped and unhappy. Guigemar is cursed to have a wound only cured by a woman’s love; he is then sent by an apparent fate to the queen of a city across the shores. The attraction between them sparks quickly and is purely based on desire, but desire within romantic love is the selfishness of it. True love rests on a foundation that is above mere desire for another person. In truth, the selfishness of desire is the
...tion of both methods can be used to show France’s idea of what love is. Patrick John Ireland argued that France’s idea of love “is a human force controlled by man with great difficulty; it is a spontaneous, natural, and all-consuming power, the experience of which leads to an almost blind passion at times” (133). To be in love, one must be entirely devoted and passionate to one another to the point of blind passion. This is so for Yonec (the Princess jumps out of the tower) and Lanval (Lanval’s complete rejection of the human world until he is brought into the world of his lover). Not only does France portray love as natural and all-consuming, but also shows the private and unearthly nature of love that cannot be contained to the realm of the human world. Rather, love transcends the boundaries of the human world and enters into a world where love reigns supreme.
He tries to warn Romeo of the temporary state of infatuation and persuades him out of his rage upon hearing his verdict of banishment. The Friar was a leaning stone for Juliet to turn to while her parents forced her to marry Paris, while the nurse betrayed her by compelling her to marry Paris. His words and belief, that the couple’s marriage would solve the family feud, was also astonishing and showed a sense of belief but also doltishness which he held. But his words have no weight, they are like water in a shattered bucket, because although he speaks in magnifying and brilliant wisdom, his actions undermine them.
The love story is circled around two people, Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley. Frederic is a young American ambulance driver with the Italian army in World War I. He meets Catherine, a beautiful English nurse, near the front of Italy and Austria. At first Frederic’s relationship with Catherine consists of a game based on his attempts to seduce her. He does make one attempt to kiss her, and is quickly slapped by an offended Catherine. Later in the story, Frederic is wounded and sent to the American hospital where Catherine works. Here he finds a part of him he has never had before, the ability to love. This is where his feelings for Catherine become extremely evident. Their relationship progresses and they begin a passionate love affair.
The story begins with the Marquise de Merteuil corresponding with Vicomte de Valmont regarding a luscious new act of ‘revenge’, as she describes it, against the Comte de Gercourt. The young Cecile de Volanges has just come home from the convent and her marriage to Gercourt has been arranged. However, before he can wed the innocent child, Merteuil proposes Valmont ‘educate’ her, thus spoiling Gercourt’s fancy for untarnished convent girls. Valmont is uninterested in such an easy seduction and is far more aroused by the thought of lulling The Presidente’ de Tourvel, the very epitome of virtue, into submission. And so the tale unfolds.
Anton Chekhov and Ernest Hemingway both convey their ideas of love in their respective stories The Lady with the Pet Dog and Hills like White Elephants in different ways. However, their ideas are quite varying, and may be interpreted differently by each individual reader. In their own, unique way, both Chekhov and Hemingway evince what is; and what is not love. Upon proper contemplation, one may observe that Hemingway, although not stating explicitly what love is; the genius found in his story is that he gives a very robust example of what may be mistaken as love, although not being true love. On the other hand, Chekhov exposes love as a frame of mind that may only be achieved upon making the acquaintance of the “right person,” and not as an ideal that one may palpate at one instance, and at the another instance one may cease to feel; upon simple and conscious command of the brain. I agree with Hemingway’s view on love because it goes straight to the point of revealing some misconceptions of love.
During the Middle Ages, Courtly love was a code which prescribed the conduct between a lady and her lover (Britannica). The relationship of courtly love was very much like the feudal relationship between a knight and his liege. The lover serves his beloved, in the manner a servant would. He owes his devotion and allegiance to her, and she inspires him to perform noble acts of valor (Schwartz). Capellanus writes, in The Art of Courtly Love, “A true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved”. The stories of Marie de France and Chrétien de Troyes illustrate the conventions of courtly love.
The Woman in Love, a section taken from Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, describes her theories on men and women in love and the vast differences and purposes they think love is for. This book was published in 1949, and with this in mind we can understand the way she describes women as the weaker sex and how dependent women are on men. In the beginning of the text she states that “The word ‘love’ has not all the same meaning for both sexes, and this is a source of the grave misunderstandings that separate them...love is merely an occupation in the life of the man, while it is life itself for the woman(683).” This first quote from this chapter is important because it really outlines what she is about to get at throughout the entire...
The Speaker in ‘My Last Duchess’ is conversing with the servant of a count whose daughter he is proposing to marry. He treats t...
Mersault believes that life has no meaning other than existence itself; so what is the purpose of love? He does nothing more than think of Marie’s physical features, like her hair, smile, skin, and laughter. Mersault runs into Marie on his way to the beach for a swim and soon after he already describes her physical attributes, “I helped her onto a float as I did, I brushed against her breasts”(Camus 19).