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A married couple may not always be the happiest couple even though it may seem that love is expressed in the relationship. Some marriages are meant to be while some are not. What causes a person to be dissatisfied with their marriage? Or how do external factors play a role on the outcome of a relationship? As for the case in "Holding Things Together" and "The Painted Door"; these short stories have a few similarities, but they also have many contrasting factors to take into consideration on why one couple is successful with there relationship while the other is not. The first factor that both shorties have in common is the loving and caring qualities of the husbands toward their wife's. In "The Painted Door", John, whose married to Anne, devotes a lot of his time to working in the farm. His goal is to pay off his mortgage as soon as possible and wants to be able to buy nice clothes for his wife. He's takes his wife into consideration when it comes to her feelings. For example, "[John] tried to brighten [his wife].(Pg.232)" when she was upset about him going to his fathers hou...
A History of Marriage by Stephanie Coontz speaks of the recent idealization of marriage based solely on love. Coontz doesn’t defame love, but touches on the many profound aspects that have created and bonded marriages through time. While love is still a large aspect Coontz wants us to see that a marriage needs more solid and less fickle aspects than just love.
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.?
Not all characters get a happy ending, and a particular character’s husband turned out to be someone much different than who she believed to be marrying. Through dishonesty, confusion, and chicanery, each character had a helping hand in dishing out each other’s fate, but nonetheless, the relationships that resulted in a law-binding marriage beat destiny and overcame every hardship standing in the way of love and happiness.
Marriage is an important theme in the stories Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin. When someone hears the word “marriage”, he thinks of love and protection but Hurston and Chopin see that differently. According to them, women are trapped in their marriage and they don’t know how to get out of it so they use language devices to prove their points.
There are many ways in which our relationships, especially marriage, are susceptible syndromes similar to the sinkhole. We let the process of developing our external world outpace our inner world and when we least expect it, the collapse comes suddenly. We spend a lot of time and effort sustaining marriage at the visible level so much that even we get convinced that all is well. The truth of the matter is that...
Marriage can be defined as an everlasting bond between two people. Two souls joining to form one. However, sometimes this bond can fade and the love that each person felt for one-another can dissipate and manifest into something uglier and darker than the warmth of love. In Elizabeth Stoddard’s poem The Wife Speaks, the speaker ponders her relationship and wonders what could be done to mend the void in her marriage to make it as it once was. Although the speaker’s current relationship is posing it be a challenge, though the use of a non-traditional structure, vivid imagery, and the emotional tone in this poem, the speaker coveys to the reader that though the sacrifices for marriage, the strive for perfection and the hope that things can get better, love will overcome and the unity with her husband will return.
The relationship between the husband and wife seems initially to be perfect. They both show each other expressions of love. There is understanding, harmony, financial security, and good communication between them. The couple spends a lot of time together, discussing future plans, and talking about the good moments they had in the past. However, behind all of this positive interaction between the two of them is something they are both not able
Beauvoir believe that the institution of marriage is just a way of society once again forcing women in to this submissive/ subservient status. Goldman argued that it not love it’s the direct opposite of love to marry someone. Marriage is not how to show someone love and wasn’t created for that reason and was only created to make women be under the control of her husband. While Voltairine believed that marriage was for women away of taking over their freedom. Though their argument are different they are all trying to solve the same problem and get a point across. This is a social construct meant to take the women identity of herself away from her giving it to the man her husband. In order to enforce some patriarchal quo of what it means to be
Ann and John, two characters from he short story "The Painted Door", do not have a very healthy relationship. John is a simple farmer who thinks the only way he can please his wife, Ann, is by working all day to earn money for her. However Ann would prefer him to spend more time with her. Their relationship is stressed even further when Ann is left at home alone with nothing to think about but their relationship because John has to go to his father’s house. The terrible snowstorm accentuates Ann’s feelings of loneliness and despair. John does not pay enough attention to Ann, and therefore creates a weak relationship.
Human beings are not isolated individuals. We do not wander through a landscape of trees and dunes alone, reveling in our own thoughts. Rather, we need relationships with other human beings to give us a sense of support and guidance. We are social beings, who need talk and company almost as much as we need food and sleep. We need others so much, that we have developed a custom that will insure company: marriage. Marriage assures each of us of company and association, even if it is not always positive and helpful. Unfortunately, the great majority of marriages are not paragons of support. Instead, they hold danger and barbs for both members. Only the best marriages improve both partners. So when we look at all three of Janie’s marriages, only her marriage to Teacake shows the support, guidance, and love.
Brockmeier’s short story represents a damaged marriage between a husband and a wife simply due to a different set of values and interests. Brockmeier reveals that there is a limit to love; husbands and wives will only go so far to continually show love for each other. Furthermore, he reveals that love can change as everything in this ever changing world does. More importantly, Brockmeier exposes the harshness and truth behind marriage and the detrimental effects on the people in the family that are involved. In the end, loving people forever seems too good to be true as affairs and divorces continually occur in the lives of numerous couples in society. However, Brockmeier encourages couples to face problems head on and to keep moving forward in a relationship. In the end, marriage is not a necessity needed to live life fully.
In “The Yellow Wall-paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the unnamed female protagonist is going through a rough time in her life. (For now on, this paper will refer to this unnamed character as the “the narrator in ‘Wall-paper,’” short for “The Yellow Wall-paper. The narrator is confined to room to a room with strange wall-paper. This odd wall-paper seems to symbolize the complexity and confusion in her life. In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard must also deal with conflict as she must deal with the death of her spouse. At first there is grief, but then there is the recognition that she will be free. The institute of marriage ties the two heroines of these two short stories together. Like typical young women of the late 19th century, they were married, and during the course of their lives, they were expected to stay married. Unlike today where divorce is commonplace, marriage was a very holy bond and divorce was taboo. This tight bond of marriage caused tension in these two characters.
Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin and the excerpt from Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser describes the dynamics between a husband and wife in a dysfunctional relationship, relating to the overarching theme that within a marriage, equal freedom and no confinement is necessary in order to fulfill a happy lifestyle. Both of these stories center around a marriage that simply is not working out, and both authors are implying to get out of relationships similar to these scenarios before it is too late.
In the book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (1999) John M. Gottman provides insight on the seven fundamental tools to construct positive relationships. Through long years of research, Gottman studied married couples and noted degenerative behaviors that hindered the formation and attainment of a long and healthy marriage. Gottman research focused on several key behavioral predictors of divorce, which he calls the “The Four Horsemen”; Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling.
One major theme of The Importance of Being Earnest is the nature of marriage. Throughout the entire play, marriage and morality serve as the catalyst for the play, inspiring the plot and raising speculation about the moral character of each person. Throughout the entire play, the characters are constantly worried about who they are going to marry and why they would marry them. This theme is the most prevalent theme throughout the entire play and shows what impact marriage had on a Victorian society. This essay will prove that marriage is the theme of this play.