Reconciliation
In “Up the Coulee,” Hamlin Garland depicts what occurs when Howard McLane is away for an extended period of time and begins to neglect his family. Howard’s family members are offended by the negligence. Although his neglect causes his brother, Grant McLane, to resent him, Garland shows that part of having a family is being able to put aside negative feelings in order to resolve problems with relatives. Garland demonstrates how years apart can affect family relationships, causing neglect, resentment, and eventually, reconciliation.
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:
It was humble enough--a small white house, story-and-a-half structure, with a wing, set in the midst of a few locust trees; a small drab-colored barn, with a sagging ridge pole; a barnyard full of mud, in which a few cows were standing, fighting the flies and waiting to be milked. (par. 74)
Grant explains to Howard, who has obviously forgotten, that the mortgage on the old farm was too expensive for them to afford.
"The house is 10 feet by 10 feet, and it is built completely of corrugated paper. The roof is peaked, the walls are tacked to a wooden frame. The dirt floor is swept clean, and along the irrigation ditch or in the muddy river...." " ...and the family possesses three old quilts and soggy, lumpy mattress. With the first rain the carefully built house will slop down into a brown, pulpy mush." (27-28)
A misconception that we often have about family is that every member is treated equally. This fallacy is substantially portrayed in Alistair Macleod’s short story, “In The Fall”. Typically speaking, in a family, the Mother is the backbone for kindness and provides love and support with no unfair judgements. However, when we relate to the portrait of the Mother in Macleod’s short story, we perceive the portrait as a self-centered woman whose affection is only shown upon what interests her. The Mother’s unsympathetic persona is apparent throughout the story as she criticizes all that holds sentimental value to her husband and children.
The materials used for the house are inexpensive, in keeping with the surrounding structures. One section is made of concrete blocks, exposed on the inside and covered with waterproofing paint on the outside. The other part of the house is “sheathed in plywood and battens and its roof is covered in asphalt shingle.” The floors are painted pine, the interior partitions, painted plywood. The total cost of the house was $102,000, only $2,000 over the budget that the Reids had set. They wanted the house built because they wanted to move their two small children out of a trailer home, and they wanted to have a larger space in which they could manage their 120-acre horse farm. The total area of the house is only 1600 sq. ft. One author noted that the house “[reconciles] lofty aspirations and modest means.”
When two siblings are born together, and are close in age, many people wonder whether they will be the same or different altogether. A “River Runs through it” shows two brothers who grew up in the same household, and grew up loving to do the same activity fly fishing. Both brothers were raised in a very strict presbyterian household. Norman is the older brother, and he is much more responsible and family orientated. Paul is the irresponsible younger brother; Paul as an adult was not at home much anymore. Both brothers were loved equally as children, but how they view and use love is what separates them. Paul and Norman differ in behavior and character.
...ve interest was free born and wished to marry her. However, after Harriet?s attempts to pursued her master to sell her to the young neighbor failed she was left worse off than before. Dr. Norcom was so cruel he forbade Harriet anymore contact with the young man. Harriet?s next love came when she gave birth to her first child. Her son Benny was conceived as a way to get around Dr. Norcom?s reign of terror. However, this is a subject that was very painful for her. She conveys to the reader that she has great regret for the length she went to stop her Master. Along with her own guilt she carries the memories of her Grandmother?s reaction to the news of her pregnancy. Clearly this was a very traumatic time in Harriet?s life. In light of these difficult events Harriet once again found love and hope in her new born son. ?When I was most sorely oppressed I found solace in his smiles. I loved to watch his infant slumber: but always there was a dark cloud over my enjoyment. I could never forget that he was a slave.? (Jacobs p. 62)
"The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey's mind. Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy. He was sitting on the edge of his chair at the table, bent over the orange sports section of the Journal. 'Now look here, Bailey,' she said, 'see here, read this,' and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head."
In both Katherine Porter’s “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” and Eudora Welty’s “Why I Live in the P.O.”, the main characters deal with family members they frankly do not like. Due to both of their being jilted by men, they are full of resentment and anger causing these women to leave their families on bad terms. Porter and Welty are presenting through the character’s flashbacks and memories that we should pick our battles wisely when it comes to our families because one day they will be gone and, some of us might miss our deceased loved ones, like Granny from “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”, or be filled with a hatred towards them, like Sister from “Why I Live in the P.O.”.
Katherine Ann Porter’s lamentable short story, “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” illustrates that abandonment has the power to leave one scarred even years down the road. Porter’s utilization of stream of consciousness highlights Weatherall’s fixation on being left at the altar and the role this distress plays in her life, leaving her detriment.
Currently, families face a multitude of stressors in their lives. The dynamics of the family has never been as complicated as they are in the world today. Napier’s “The Family Crucible” provides a critical look at the subtle struggles that shape the structure of the family for better or worse. The Brice family is viewed through the lens of Napier and Whitaker as they work together to help the family to reconcile their relationships and the structure of the family.
The characters in this story can’t comprehend perilous situations. The main character’s wife, Mildred, is unable to understand the significance of death, “She’s gone for good. I think she’s dead. Run over by a car four days ago” (Bradbury 41), when referring to her neighbor who had just died. Mildred says this without showing any emotion or sorrow. Unlike most caring people, Mildred didn’t comment on how sad or unfortunate her neighbor’s death was. Mildred is an example of how desensitization can rule the way we act. On the other hand, Mildred’s husband, Montag, is one of the few characters in this book who show sympathy. This is the reason, “He had chills and a fever in the morning” (Bradbury 42). Montag didn’t feel well because he can’t help but feel blue when thinking about his neighbors tragic death. The author Ray Bradbury explains Montag’s state of being to show the contrast between a desensitized person like Mildred and a sympathetic person like Montag. This theme is a problem found in most humans. For example, in today’s society we cheer for the violence in sports. We cheer for the big hits or checks without thinking twice. In this instance, Mildred might not have intended to be rude but her desensitized personality kept her from realizing what she was saying. If humans like Mildred cannot care for others’ feelings or have sympathy, then how can they be “perfect?” Therefore, if
Having other character flaws, the trait of being selfish for example, makes it ten times harder to deal with that family member. Both Anse and Howard were very selfish people, very selfish husbands. "Don't love it so well, Clark, or it may be taken from you. Oh, dear boy, pray that whatever your sacrifice may be, it be not that." (Cather). Georgianna had been kept from her music for 30 years, and she misses it, yet her husband who obviously does not care about what she cares about, has kept and allowed her to be without what she loves most for so long. It is only when she visits her nephew that she realizes how much she wishes she could stay; stay with the music. Anse, on the other hand, knew his wife was very ill, yet instead of getting a doctor, he just let her die. "God's will be done," he says. "Now I can get them teeth." (Faulkner). Being selfish drove Anse’s and Howard's family members away and left them lonely and outcasts.
Marie, who is a product of an abusive family, is influenced by her past, as she perceives the relationship between Callie and her son, Bo. Saunders writes, describing Marie’s childhood experiences, “At least she’d [Marie] never locked on of them [her children] in a closet while entertaining a literal gravedigger in the parlor” (174). Marie’s mother did not embody the traditional traits of a maternal fig...
Most women in Mrs Mallard’s situation were expected to be upset at the news of her husbands death, and they would worry more about her heart trouble, since the news could worsen her condition. However, her reaction is very different. At first she gets emotional and cries in front of her sister and her husbands friend, Richard. A little after, Mrs. Mallard finally sees an opportunity of freedom from her husbands death. She is crying in her bedroom, but then she starts to think of the freedom that she now has in her hands. “When she abandoned herse...
Walton is starting to realize the hardships and struggles of his excursion he has taken. He writes to his dearest sister, “How slowly the time passes here,..” Waltons very exciting and hopeful journey is not as planned and it’s all starting to take a toll on him. He says that there is a want that cannot be quenched on his excursion and that is his friend Margaret. He misses her so and he has no connection to her whatsoever. Walton seems to be losing his mind. He writes later, “and I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavor to regulate my mind.”
Howard could be a young Lipsha, with his oddity and innate cleverness. Yet Erdrich's description of the broken home Howard lives in paints a bleak picture of his future prospects. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Howard's reply to police at the door: he runs to them, yelling that his father is