Didion displays her resignation as she writes about the unharmonious relationship between her husband and her family. Her husband explains to her even though he likes her family, he still feels uncomfortable and uneasy during their visits because she tends to “Fall into their ways, which are difficult, oblique, deliberately inarticulate” (636). Even Didion’s family shows unsettlement as she writes “My brother does not understand my husband’s inability to perceive the advantage in the rather common real-estate transaction known as ‘sale-leaseback,’ and my husband in turn does not understand why so many of the people he hears about in my father’s house have recently been committed to mental hospitals or booked on drunk-driving charges” (636). Didion uses these contrasts of her two families to display the dissonant nature between her husband and her family in Central Valley, California. In her contrast and comparisons, she uses a discrete tone such as “What could the Canton dessert plates mean to him? How could he have known about the assay scales, why should he care if he did know?” (6...
Previously, the narrator has intimated, “She had all her life long been accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves. They had never taken the form of struggles. They belonged to her and were her own.” Her thoughts and emotions engulf her, but she does not “struggle” with them. They “belonged to her and were her own.” She does not have to share them with anyone; conversely, she must share her life and her money with her husband and children and with the many social organizations and functions her role demands.
Joan Didion’s reaction to when her husband passes away is characteristically American because of how she is unable to cope with her husband’s death. “[She] would still get up in the morning and send out the laundry. [She] would still plan a menu for Easter lunch. [She] woul...
Chaim Potok’s The Chosen explores two father son relationships, one between the Malters and one between the Saunders. In the final chapter of the book, Danny and Reb Saunders finally come to an understanding of each other, but not without the help of Reuven. Although they are a strong family, the Saunders need an outside force to help them communicate and solve Danny’s problems overall. The last chapter covers the need for suffering and pain and shows how Danny grows with Reuven’s help.
Before Mrs. Ames and the mother realize the restrictions of their old lives, their worlds have been full of disillusionment and ignorance. Mrs. Ames, for example, is oppressed by her husband’s silence and the search for love and tenderness from anyone, because she lives each day alone, ignored by her scornful husband. And, as a result of being left companionless, she does not mature, rather she longs for tenderness. In other words, Boyle explains her dysfunctional relationship with her husband, “The mystery and silence of her husband’s mind lay like a chiding finger of her lips. Her eyes were gray for the light had been extinguished in them” (57). That is, Mrs. Ames’ spirit remains oppressed by her husband who treats her as a child, and, in doing so, isolates her from his world.
After a decade of not seeing his mother and brother, Howard returns to his hometown in Mississippi. It is evident how thrilled he is. As the train approaches town, he begins “to feel curious little movements of the heart, like a lover as he nears his sweetheart” (par. 3). He expects this visit to be a marvelous and welcoming homecoming. His career and travel have kept his schedule extremely full, causing him to previously postpone this trip to visit his family. Although he does not immediately recognize his behavior in the past ten years as neglectful, there are many factors that make him aware of it. For instance, Mrs. McLane, Howard’s mother, has aged tremendously since he last saw her. She has “grown unable to write” (par. 72). Her declining health condition is an indicator of Howard’s inattentiveness to his family; he has not been present to see her become ill. His neglect strikes him harder when he sees “a gray –haired woman” that showed “sorrow, resignation, and a sort of dumb despair in her attitude” (par. 91). Clearly, she is growing old, and Howard feels guilty for not attending her needs for such a long time period: “his throat [aches] with remorse and pity” (par. 439). He has been too occupied with his “excited and pleasurable life” that he has “neglected her” (par. 92). Another indication of Howard’s neglect is the fact that his family no longer owns the farm and house where he grew up. They now reside in a poorly conditioned home:
Even with the pain of bearing children, raising them, doing household and even farm chores, their efforts have never been truly appreciated. Mrs. Wright was “…real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid—and fluttery…” as Mrs. Hale, her neighbor, describes her (22). This would all soon change after her wedding day. With Mr. Wright’s insipid character and lack of patience of any joyous sound, Mrs. Wright’s spirit dwindled to nothing. It seems she spent hours at a time focusing on her quilts, preserves, and caring for the only life there was in the house, her canary. Even when Mr. Hale offered to get a party telephone, Mr. Wright responded, “…folks talk too much anyway…”(5). This silence he preferred also applied to his spouse. There were no hugs given out much less a smile. He failed to give her even the most minimal sing of appreciation much less the emotional warmth she hungered for.
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...
In a subtle way, Brush also makes the wife’s actions selfish. Even though her husband was wrong to react in the way that he did, she was also selfish in her actions. Clearly, her husband has a shy personality because “he was hotly embarrassed” (13) in front of “such few people as there were in the restaurant” (11). Using a couple of this age (“late thirties” (1)), Brush asserts that the wife should have known her husband’s preferences and been sensitive to them. The author also uses the seemingly opposite descriptions the couple: “There was nothing conspicuous about them” (5) and the “big hat” (4) of the woman. The big hat reveals the wife’s desire to be noticed.
Once upon a time, there was a normal family who lived in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas. They were the image of the perfect family. The father, Mr. Clutter was “the community 's most widely known citizen, prominent both there and in Garden City” and “He was currently chairman of the Kansas Conference of Farm Organizations, and his name was everywhere respectfully recognized among Midwestern agriculturists, as it was in certain Washington offices.” (In cold blood, p. 6). His two younger children, Nancy and Kenyon clutter were both high school students. Nancy was “ a popular, pretty, virginal girl” who liked to “read, cook, sew, dance, ride horseback” (In cold blood, p. 84). Kenyon was a very sensitive and intelligent boy, a good carpenter
Interpersonal conflict is. Every relationship has conflict and determining on how the conflict is resolved or handled can make the relationship stronger or weaker. If someone is more easily to come up with a compromise rather than always getting their own way, they may have stronger relationships (Bevan and Sole, 2014). Television shows also use interpersonal conflict between their characters to find a solution or compromise in the end. Interpersonal conflict is all around us, it is how we handle that conflict that makes or breaks our relationships.
Meursault’s Maman, when introduced to the reader, has already passed away; however, her past relationships that disclose themselves when Meursault attends the funeral directly contrast her son’s emotional receptivity, or lack thereof. During Maman’s funeral, a woman “in the second row...emitted a little choking sob” (8). The keeper subsequently relieves Meursault of his frustration by explaining to him that “she was devoted to [his] mother” and that they were close friends (8). Along with friendship, Maman also embraces romance during her last few days with her relationship with Thomas Perez at the home, where “[he] and [maman] [are] almost inseparable” and “people [would] tease Perez about having a fiance” (10). Maman’s attempt to form de...
In the novel Go tell it on the mountain Baldwin tells the story of John, a 14 year old boy who lives in one twisted family, whose bases of living is in their faith in God. John has three major problems in his life. One is a religious crisis, John believes to have committed the first major sin of his life, Masturbation, this belief helps hasten his religious crisis. Second, is his coming-of-age struggles, living in the tempting streets of Harlem he is trying to stay on the path of righteousness and stay away from the temptations of everyday sin.
The author recounts his relationship with his father as a young boy and comes to realize that despite his fathers seemingly cruel behavior towards him and their contrasting visions on life, his father had an ultimate responsibility, to be, “a pillar of the family,” which was weighing his father down, which in turn weighed him down. The author makes this point by structuring the passage into three segments, each being distinguished from each other by his shift of tone. In the first segment his tone is unwelcoming of his father evident in the contrast between the boy’s predictions on how his father would look like based on photos from before the war, and the gruesome reality from after the war. The second segment instills a tone of fear of
Set in Boston in the late 1930’s Mrs. Marroner, a woman of high class, is lying on her bed crying. She has just found out that her husband has cheated on her with the maid they took in. Both Mr and Mrs Marroner had loved the young servant from Sweden so it was a great betrayal when Mrs Maaroner found out what her husband had done. Though at first she blamed Gerta, the young maid, she soon ‘turned’ her perspective and saw Gerta as the victim. Her husband, arrived home from an overseas trip finds the house that they had lived together in empty. Wanting to know what happened to his wife he hired private investigators to search for her. When he finds her she has gone back to her job at the university and is taking care of Gerta and the baby she
Renowned sociologist Emile Durkheim was once quoted as saying, “A person is not merely a single subject distinguished from all the others. It is especially a being to which is attributed a relative autonomy in relation to the environment with which it is most immediately in contact.” Society and its aspects play a role in developing the individual. I decided to perform an interview with my dad to analyze his life through the lens of sociology. After performing an interview (one of the sociological methods of inquiry) with my father, I was able to see contributions of structure, culture, and agency in his life. My dad is forty-nine years old years old and works at Stantec (an engineering firm based out of Canada with a branch in Lexington) as a human resources manager. In my interview, I decided to really focus on the topics of work, family, social class, and education to look for explanations of the factors that influenced his social mobility.