"Dimensions": Too Controlling or Loving Too Much

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Sometimes in a couple, there is a husband who unreasonably controls his wife and a wife that accepts him because of her total love towards him. In Alice Munro’s “Dimensions”, the main character Doree marries Lloyd, an old hippie she meets at hospital. They successfully make three children, but after marriage, Lloyd starts to show his dominant character throughout the story. Doree cannot resist his controlling behavior and philosophy. However, she shows signs that she has abilities to stand against him especially at the end. Although Doree is restrained by Lloyd, in the end of the story, she breaks free from his control when she decides to save a boy’s life.

Doree is controlled by Lloyd during their marriage. On the photograph Lloyd took of Doree and the children, Doree’s hair is naturally curled and coloured as Lloyd preferred it. Also, she doesn’t wear makeup in the story because Lloyd forbids it. These suggest Lloyd has an appearance control over Doree. Furthermore, when one of the children starts rejecting Doree’s breast feeding, she tells Lloyd that she cannot produce milk anymore. Lloyd then squeezes her breast and with couple of drops leaking, states that she lied. They fight about it but since then, Lloyd rebukes Doree for not breast feeding every time something bad happens to the child, such as catching cold. This proposes Doree cannot stand against Lloyd, and has no way but to obey him. Additionally, Doree believes she needs to be loyal to Lloyd, no matter what other people say. When her friend Maggie worries Doree whether she is doing fine with him or not, Doree thinks no one understands a love between him and it is not necessary to even bother what Maggie thinks.
Then Doree asked herself why she should care what Maggie...

... middle of paper ...

...trol at the end. While they are married and even after Lloyd kills the children, Doree is totally under his control, feeling the destiny to stay with him and try to understand him. However, Lloyd’s theory about Dimensions changes Doree into a more stable woman, and by saving a child, she is able to let herself out of his manipulation at last. To analyze in different perspective, Doree has to make a tough decision between a love towards her predominant husband and a love towards her children who were killed by him. Hence, an extent of the control Lloyd has on Doree can be also said that is proportional to an extent of Doree’s love towards Lloyd. Ultimately in the case of “Dimensions”, it illustrates, a negative and possibly one of the worst, influence love can have on couples.

Works Cited

Munro, Alice. “Dimensions”. Too Much Happiness. New York; Knopf, 2009. Print

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