Kerry Egan’s “Married to a Mystery Man” is a very interesting article. Egan begins her story with her very first terrifying memory as a newly wedded women. She explains how her “husband-of-a-day” had just told her that he had spent the night before their wedding in a jail. When I reached this particular part of the article, I realized that the author didn’t even have to express what she felt at that moment, because as a reader, I already had an idea of the terror she must have felt. This detail really emphasized on a point that I have always had in the back of my mind. Honestly, when do we ever know a person for who they truly are? I might know their habits, likes and dislikes and moods at the most, but do I really know who they are? Egan
Often people are not what they seem. According to Roald Dahl, in “Lamb to the Slaughter,” “But there needn’t really be any fuss. I hope not anyway. It wouldn’t be very good for my job.” When in public Patrick Maloney was the doting husband, but when the doors hid outside eyes Patrick revealed his true feelings. He wanted a divorce. He wanted to ruin his wife and soon-to-be child, but without anyone knowing. Thought the passage, the tone is revealed as condescending. The way Mr. Maloney talks to his wife is as though she is a small and unknowing child.
For example, the piece starts out explaining the circumstances of an encounter the author had with a woman on a deserted street in Hyde Park, a wealthy neighborhood in an “impoverished” section of Chicago. The author states “As I swung onto the avenue behind her, there seemed to be a discreet, uninflammatory distance between us. Not so. She cast a worried glance… After a few more quick glimpses, she picked up her pace and was soon running in earnest. Within seconds she disappeared into a cross street” (1). Through the usage of the anecdote, the author demonstrates the hostile attitude people had toward him, even though he didn’t do anything to make the woman feel uncomfortable, other than walking down the street behind her. In a similar fashion, the author mentions the confusion people have toward whether he will be trouble or not, stating the following as being the most terrifying for him: “One day, rushing into the office of a magazine I was writing for with a deadline story in hand, I was mistaken as a burglar. The office manager called security and, with an ad hoc posse, pursued me through the labyrinthe halls, nearly to my editor’s door. I had no way of proving who I was. I could only move briskly toward the company of someone who knew me” (8). This anecdote describes the attitude the general public had toward the author.
Lessons are learned through mistakes and experiences, but to completely understand the lesson, a person must be smart enough to profit from their errors and be strong enough to correct them. However, this was not the case for the main character in the short story; A Good Man is Hard to Find written by Flannery O’Connor. In this tale of manipulation and deception, O’Connor depicts the main character, the grandmother, as a shrewd self-centered woman, who considers herself morally superior than the other individuals. Throughout the entire story, she is seen using her manipulative tactics on everyone, which brought her to a sinister ending. O’Connor expertly portrayed the grandmother as a character that did not correct her negative characteristics throughout the story. To prove this statement, the use of time will be applied to help focus on the main idea of the grandmother not changing her deleterious ways throughout this story.
Identity is not created based on perfection; it created based one’s qualities and unique choices. If a young woman follows and tries to create an identical identity for themselves to make an ideal identity themselves, it take away their chance of creating their own unique identity. Sometimes the desire of an ideal identity comes from the lack of good and stable family background. Alicia, a twenty-eight-year-old Hispanic woman interviewed by Bell, whose desire to have an ideal family stopped her from expressing her sexual desire. Bell discusses the reason of Alicia 's choices of an ideal identity, which is “the stability, structure, and love of a traditional family seems to afford all of the experience Alicia herself lacked in her upbringing. A traditional family became the solution to the problem of instability in Alicia’s mind. And being a good girl was the strategy Alicia adopted to enable her to have a traditional family” (39). Alicia despite her not so good family background wanted to have a traditional family life. She adopted the idea of being a good girl in order to achieve her goal of family life. She wasn’t anymore making choices; it was her will of having that future identity was making all her decision. The idea of a perfect identity and future eventually takes away the freedom of choices, which results in the creation of a fake identity. Bell writes that “Nor did being a good girl ensure that Alicia had satisfying and committed relationships. Alicia was frustrated that she’d ostensibly done the right thing but still ended up with two STDs and without a lasting relationship” (37). Trying to make an ideal identity creates the pressures of how people around see them. It also creates humongous pressure of taking a wrong step and thought of losing their ideal identity. This kind of
Throughout the entire book, O’Brien makes several references to how normal men can completely change their persona if placed in such an environment. I picked four instances, which truly represented how the mind changes. When Dave Jensen broke lee trunk’s nose, he became absolutely paranoid about every aspect of his life. The young lady who be...
Accordingly, this visit to McMurphy’s childhood home offers a glimpse into what a true man ought to be. McMurphy’s young age at the time of the incident—a time before society’s rules could change what is naturally in the child—particularly shows what a boy or man ought to be. McMurphy the child exemplifies all of McMurphy the adult’s best qualities, and yet is freer: the child is active, virile, and sexually mature, without fear of retribution from the
When life becomes a question of survival, do rules in everyday life/ behavior seem to matter? Lies and deceit can show to be motive if or when life is threatened. Throughout this paper it will become apparent that when put into a certain position where there are decisions to be made, everyone might show another side of themselves that you may not have known to be there. Within the story, Night lies and deceit will prove to show not only character traits, but how they affect decisions that are made and how the overall ending is changed due to denial that comes along with it all.
Janie’s previous husbands—Logan and Joe—and Arvay’s husband, Jim Meserve, “sometimes play more the role of substitute parent than that of a husband” (Roark 207). Clearly, this type of relationship impedes one’s self-actualization (including the recognition of one’s personal desires and aspirations). While a father figure is completely...
Take the father for example. When exposed to a public setting his thoughts are solely focused on the survival of his son and himself. However, when permitted to dwell in seclusion, or rather when the public is no longer a part of the immediate situation, the father’s thoughts transcends to a more thought-provoking level. In the beginning of the novel, before we are introduced to any antagonist, the father and son are alone e...
Stephanie Ericsson is a seasoned writer who draws from deeply personal experiences to find inspiration for her writing. She has battled with substance abuse for years, and had to deal with the sudden death of her husband while pregnant with their only child. Several pieces of her work have been published by Harpercollins and “The Ways We Lie” was originally published in the Utne Reader, a magazine that offers readers thoughtful writing from many perspectives.
“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.
John Steinbeck once stated, “It is the responsibility of the writer to expose our many grievous faults and failures and to hold up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams, for the purpose of improvement.” In others words, people should expose the many flaws and failures that every human has. By revealing them and making it eye-catching, that person can recognize that flaw and work to improve their flaws and failures. The journalistic novel Random Family by Adriene Nicole LeBlanc and the non-fiction novel Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger both reveal that true mental and emotional freedom is dependent on finding a solution for your defects and deficiency. The literary elements used to prove this quote was conflict and irony.
Determining who somebody really is has become more difficult throughout the years as many people zealously find ways to conceal their true identities in order to blend in or hide from society’s standards. In the stories “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” and “Life After School” by Joyce Carol Oates, the author establishes that each of her primary characters are masking their true identities in order to be seen differently and/or to be accepted by others. Because each of Oates’ characters tries to conceal their true feelings or intent, the primary characters of each story are ultimately left with an unsolvable dilemma.
Markus Zusak’s novel The Book Thief is set in a time of misery and violence, with thousands suffering because of various reasons the readers are introduced to the story of a young girl whose life starts with insufferable difficulties and ends with it too. Throughout the novel we see many different personalities portrayed in characters who are all going through a difficult phase in their lives, we see how they deal with the obstacles thrown their way and how they control their emotions. Emotions are primarily a give away to a person's true thoughts and character, however, emotions can be hidden by a mask of false lies. People tend to conceal their emotions when it comes to unfortunate events, afraid to look weak most people live
The Unexpected is a story of a man and a woman, engaged and deeply in