Review Of Mavis Gallant's The Other Paris

446 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Literature review on marriages

In the Other Paris, Mavis Gallant presents the unloving and rushed nature of marriage expressed through her usage of detached diction and the caricatures of intellectual young adults pressured by societal expectations, in the 1950’s, towards marriage.
Gallant’s usage of disconnected diction as she describes the “unsuitable medical student with no money and eight years’ training still to go” satirizes the materialistic societal pressures on women to marry financially reliable men, further emphasizing the unloving nature of marriage during this time. This express the unempathetic societal expectations towards the marriage of young adults, due to the unfeeling and analytic concept of the man being “unsuitable” for holy matrimony due to his lack of wealth. …show more content…

“The fact that Carol was not in love with Howard Mitchell did not dismay her in the least.” Love is wholly unimportant to Carol, as far as choosing a husband goes. Through college lectures, blaring the materialistic expectations surrounding marriage, Carol comes to not believe in the necessity of love in a successful marriage. Marriage, to Carol, exists in environment, to the point she believes the weather might affect it. “Love required only the right conditions, like a geranium.” This sentence compares love to a plant, a material possession fully affected by its environment, and demonstrates the belief of Carol’s, and the society around her that gave her that belief in the first place, that love can be generated almost scientifically. This unreasonable and hyperbolic assumption, key to Carol’s character and her motivations in marriage, criticizes society’s disbelief in love existing no matter the circumstances or differences between

Show More
Related

  • The Merchant's Ideas of Marriage

    1237 Words  | 3 Pages

    In conclusion, that marital traditions have changed greatly over the centuries and due to this, the opinion of what an ‘ideal marriage” consists of has changes as well. When reviewing the document “On Love and Marriage” the author (a Merchant of Paris) believes that marriage should not be an equal partnership, but one that pleases the husband to avoid conflict. Most women today can be very thankful that these ideas were drastically altered from previous centuries, and that tradition was not carried out onto present day society.

    Read More

  • Summary Of A History Of Marriage By Stephanie Coontz

    1031 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Love and Marriage in Gallant's The Other Paris

    921 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.?

    Read More

  • Analysis Of To The Ladies

    845 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lady Chudleighs’s “To the Ladies” exhibits a remorseful stance on the concept of joining holy matrimony. Chudleigh’s usage of metaphoric context and condescending tone discloses her negative attitude towards the roles of a wife once she is married. It is evident that Mary Chudleigh represents the speaker of the poem and her writing serves a purpose to warn single women not go get married and a regretful choice to women who are.

    Read More

  • Edna Pontellier and Elizabeth Bennet: Challenge of 19th Century Conventional Methods

    1359 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Bible which is seen as one of the most sacred text to man has contained in it not only the Ten Commandments, but wedding vows. In those vows couples promise to love, cherish, and honor each other until death does them apart. The irony of women accepting these vows in the nineteenth century is that women are viewed as property and often marry to secure a strong economic future for themselves and their family; love is never taken into consideration or questioned when a viable suitor presents himself to a women. Often times these women do not cherish their husband, and in the case of Edna Pontiellier while seeking freedom from inherited societal expectations and patriarchal control; even honor them. Women are expected to be caretakers of the home, which often time is where they remain confined. They are the quintessential mother and wife and are expected not to challenge that which...

    Read More

  • Comparing Marriage In Shiloh And Raymond Carver's Cathedral

    952 Words  | 2 Pages

    Essentially, to acquire a healthy marriage, a few keys to success are commitment, good communication skills, trust, and patience. Without these qualities, marriages can immerse in negativity which often leads to divorce. In Bobbie Ann Mason’s “Shiloh” and Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral”, a failing marriage seems to be the similar theme. Both short stories provide instabilities in their relationships and how they lack these fundamental qualities. In “Shiloh,” Leroy and Norma Jean deal with the loss of a child; the grief and unsupportive environment leaves their marriage questionable. In “Cathedral,” the nameless narrator becomes jealous when his wife, who is also nameless, invites an old friend Robert to stay the night after the visitor’s wife

    Read More

  • Marriage in The Ceiling by Kevin Brockmeier

    898 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Birthday Party

    527 Words  | 2 Pages

    Immediately, the narrator stereotypes the couple by saying “they looked unmistakably married” (1). The couple symbolizes a relationship. Because marriage is the deepest human relationship, Brush chose a married couple to underscore her message and strengthen the story. The husband’s words weaken their relationship. When the man rejects his wife’s gift with “punishing…quick, curt, and unkind” (19) words, he is being selfish. Selfishness is a matter of taking, just as love is a matter of giving. He has taken her emotional energy, and she is left “crying quietly and heartbrokenly” (21). Using unkind words, the husband drains his wife of emotional strength and damages their relationship.

    Read More

  • Story Of An Hour Deception Essay

    707 Words  | 2 Pages

    Chopin shows that some social pressures and responsibilities can in fact hold one back from their own potential as was Mrs. Mallard. Marriage was introduced as one of these social expectations, and Mrs. Mallard’s internal conflict shows the reader that sometimes it is hard to question these normalities. By creating such an internal visual of Mrs. Mallard, Chopin provides a tale of the true importance of seeing past socialistic deception, and choosing to find happiness beyond

    Read More

  • Chopin’s The Story of an Hour

    1355 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... This woman suffers a tremendous amount from the commitment of her marriage, and the death of her husband does not affect her for long. A marriage such as this seems so unbelievable, yet a reader can see the realistic elements incorporated into the story. This begs the question of how undesirable marriage was during Chopin’s life. The unhappiness felt by Mrs. Mallard seems to be very extreme, but Chopin creates a beautiful story that reflects upon the idea of marriage as an undesired relationship and bond to some women in the nineteenth century.

    Read More

  • Story Of An Hour Oppression Analysis

    1156 Words  | 3 Pages

    “There is no perfect relationship. The idea that there is gets us into so much trouble.”-Maggie Reyes. Kate Chopin reacts to this certain idea that relationships in a marriage during the late 1800’s were a prison for women. Through the main protagonist of her story, Mrs. Mallard, the audience clearly exemplifies with what feelings she had during the process of her husbands assumed death. Chopin demonstrates in “The Story of an Hour” the oppression that women faced in marriage through the understandings of: forbidden joy of independence, the inherent burdens of marriage between men and women and how these two points help the audience to further understand the norms of this time.

    Read More

  • Women's Role in Society in Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

    2714 Words  | 6 Pages

    In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen shows examples of how most marriages were not always for love but more as a formal agreement arranged by the two families. Marriage was seen a holy matrimony for two people but living happil...

    Read More

  • Is Love's Fidelity in Question?

    578 Words  | 2 Pages

    Marital love is complex. It is a lot of work, and the harder we work at it the better it will serve us. We do not always have warm fuzzy evenings, candle lit dinners, strolls in the park, cuddling on a snowy day. Some days are outright tough with kids tugging left and right, and our partners talking about a rough day at work while one unscrews a spent light bulb that needs replacing. We sometimes find ourselves sitting by the window, watching people walk by with the sounds of the city in the background, just pondering our situations in life. And in an instant a soft blue ball flies from across the room distorting our moment. How does this correlate with Mrs. Mallard, we ask? Her experience of blissful notions with nature, “She could...

    Read More

  • Three Readers Response to The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

    1192 Words  | 3 Pages

    My belief on marriage is a sacred vow taken by two people which joins them in union. Most people carry the belief that marriage should occur only when two people are in love; although this belief is common it is not always the case and people marry for a variety of reasons. In the short story "The Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin suggests that in the case of Mrs. Mallard and Mr. Mallard, love was not a deciding factor for their reason to get married. Though the response of three readers, one being myself, we will explore the character of Mrs. Mallard and the idea of love in her marriage. Kate Chopin has given little detail about the Mallards and therefore left much to the imagination of the reader. Although there are similarities in details between readers such as: point of view, setting, and character, each reader brings new perspective and ideas. This type of analysis of the text allows a richer and more knowledgeable outlook; not only by enhancing ones own ideas by introducing new ones.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Women In David Copperfield

    729 Words  | 2 Pages

    Within these marriages, readers get a sense of how education plays an important role in a successful marriage, as this fulfills both of their dreams of personal identity. Although women in the nineteenth century were viewed to be superior wives and mothers, manage the household, and perform domestic tasks, it was important for women to become educated as “an education was supposed to enable these girls to become successful women in society” (Leigh 117). Women were not meant to be “trained” in some way to become good wives, but needed to be formally educated in order to be a successful wife and

    Read More

More about Review Of Mavis Gallant's The Other Paris

Open Document