Renowned motivational speaker Tony Gaskins once said, “Communication to a relationship is like oxygen to life. Without it…it dies” (Live Life Happy). For instance, the ignorance of the narrator in Kevin Brockmeier’s “The Ceiling,” showcases how oblivious he is to his wife’s infidelity growing, as an equally disturbing surface descends from the sky upon his town. While the object approaches the earth and becomes more apparent, his marriage is falling apart to the point of no return. The text illustrates how the lack of acknowledgement or emotional presence from a spouse will often result in a failed marriage. This is demonstrated through the unobservant nature of the narrator and his troubled wife, the symbolic significance of the “ceiling” …show more content…
For instance, the narrator realizes that whenever he and his wife are alone, she becomes sheltered in her own sphere. This comes to mind, though with uncertainty, where he questions “whether the person I saw tinkering at the window was opening the latches or sealing the cracks” (32). What he doesn’t realize, and is oblivious to, is that the person she’s shutting herself away from was not just any person but himself. What’s more, the narrator is unaware of the changes happening to the world around him as the “ceiling” becomes visible upon his town. Even though he goes out day by day, as several months passed by, he was not conscious of the fact that the birds and insects had disappeared. He even claims that, “I did not notice they were gone though…until I read Joshua’s essay” (34). He’s blind to the world changing beneath his eyes, so how would he be aware of the status of his relationship if he can’t see what’s right in front of him? Even while getting his hair trimmed, and Wesson the barber asks him, “How’s the pretty lady?” the narrator replies, “‘She hasn’t been feeling to well,’ I said. ‘But I think she’s coming out of it” (34). He assumes that her abnormal behaviour lately is only a sort of phase that will simply pass by on its own, as time goes by. As a result, his incapability to recognize not only his wife’s change of demeanour but also …show more content…
The object is not yet visible to the eye, but its presence can be felt. Noticing that there was a “tension and strain to the air, a shift in its customary balance” (31). This is analogous to their relationship because there’s the sense of something problematic but there’s no clear issue to be pinpointed on. Walking back from the barber shop, the narrator realizes that if the “ceiling” in its “smooth black polish” were to remain at its current level “we might come to forget that it was even there, charting for ourselves a new map of the night sky” (35). The object symbolizes how the narrator perceives his relationship, that as long as there aren’t any bumps or scratches, his marriage will remain as steady as he assumes it to be. In particular, the plane of the object is no more than a few inches above the ground, and the narrator, his wife and Mitch, along with their kids, were lying underneath the “polished undersurface of the ceiling” (39). As far as shown, the affair remains unaddressed which may make it seem as if their relationship is perfect without any flaws despite the knowing complications and their avoidance to discuss it. Ironically, not only are they trapped in a town that’s coming to an end as the ceiling nears the ground, but they’re also trapped in a doomed marriage with equally no way
Silence — the sound of quiet, the state of mind, the lack of meaning — all these pertain to its definition. Communication is expanding, noise is increasing, music is becoming more obtainable as people search desperately for a moment of peace or a breeze of silence. As the scarcity of physical silence increases, its value as a rare commodity increases as well. The idiom “Silence is golden” may perhaps only grow closer to reality as time passes, as exemplified by the white noise machines or silent fans entering the market and fictionalized in Kevin Brockmeier’s short story, “The Year of Silence.” In light of this, Brockmeier explores the value of silence and noise in his story without putting one above the other. Through strange clues and hidden
Tony Horwitz is the author of Midnight Rising: John Brown and The Raid That Sparked The Civil War. Horwitz was born Washington D.C., a graduate of Brown University and Columbia University School of Journalism. Before becoming an author, Horwitz was a newspaper reporter, starting in Indiana. He later became an amazing best selling author, his latest work is Midnight Rising. In the novel, he discusses John Brown’s early life and explains the raid he led into Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Horwitz theorizes how John Brown sparks the Civil War.
In individual searches to find themselves, Frank and April Wheeler take on the roles of the people they want to be, but their acting grows out of control when they lose sense of who they are behind the curtains. Their separate quests for identity converge in their wish for a thriving marriage. Initially, they both play roles in their marriage to please the other, so that when their true identities emerge, their marriage crumbles, lacking communication and sentimentality. Modelled after golden people or manly figures, the roles Frank and April take on create friction with who they actually are. Ultimately, to “do something absolutely honest” and “true,” it must be “a thing … done alone” (Yates 327). One need only look inside his or her self to discover his or her genuine identity.
perceive the novel in the rational of an eleven-year-old girl. One short, simple sentence is followed by another , relating each in an easy flow of thoughts. Gibbons allows this stream of thoughts to again emphasize the childish perception of life’s greatest tragedies. For example, Gibbons uses the simple diction and stream of consciousness as Ellen searches herself for the true person she is. Gibbons uses this to show the reader how Ellen is an average girl who enjoys all of the things normal children relish and to contrast the naive lucidity of the sentences to the depth of the conceptions which Ellen has such a simplistic way of explaining.
Pollard, Percival. "The Unlikely Awakening of a Married Woman." Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1994. 179-181.
Communication is a vital component of everyday relationships in all of mankind. In plays, there are many usual staging and dialogue techniques that directors use to achieve the attention of the audience. However, in the play, “Post-its (Notes on a Marriage)”, the authors Paul Dooley and Winnie Holzman use both staging and conversation in order to convey the struggles of modern relationships. The play is unconventional in how it attempts to have the audience react in a unique way. The authors use staging and conversation to portray to the audience that there are complex problems with communication in modern relationships.
All over the world, marriage is one of the main things that define a woman’s life. In fact, for women, marriage goes a long way to determine much in their lives including happiness, overall quality of life whether or not they are able to set and achieve their life goals. Some women go into marriages that allow them to follow the paths they have chosen and achieve their goals while for other women, marriage could mean the end of their life goals. For Janie, the lead character in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, who was married twice first to Joe sparks, and to Vergile Tea Cake, her two marriages to these men greatly affected her happiness, quality of life and pursuit of her life goals in various ways, based on the personality of each of the men. Although both men were very different from each other, they were also similar in some ways.
“It was a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mourning notes without promise, devoid even of hope. She turned back into the room and began to walk to and fro, down its whole length, without stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the glittering circlet.
A major sign in “The Ceiling” is the lack of communication between the narrator and his wife, Melissa. An essential component in marriage is the ability to optimistically communicate between spouses; communication allows each spouse to effectively understand each other feelings toward various situations and circumstances. The lack of communication within “The Ceiling,” is noticeable as the narrator mentions “After we put Joshua to bed…across a divide” (Brockmeier, 96). When he tells her “You don’t look a day older than when we met, honey. You know that, don’t you?” and she answers with a “slight puff through her nose” that was a laugh, but he couldn’t tell what her expression was, as well as a slight “thank you” (Brockmeier, 95). Melissa exposes her lack of interest in this particular scene. This scene shows the evident miscommunication between both spouses as he mentions that h...
As the story begins, the narrator's compliance with her role as a submissive woman is easily seen. She states, "John laughs at me, but one expects that in marriage" (Gilman 577). These words clearly illustrate the male's position of power in a marriage t...
The best cement of a couple’s relationship is comprehension, and conversation. “Sex, Lies and Conversation” by Deborah Tannin points out that the lack of conversation is one of the major reasons why people divorce. Distance is created quickly if a husband or a wife does not share his or her feelings, does not tell his or her partner what is happening, and keep the feelings; however, a successful relationship constantly keeps the lines of communication open.
In “The story of an Hour,” Louise Mallard learns from Josephine and Richards that her husband, Brently, has died. She confines herself to the upstairs room. While Josephine and Richards believes that she is upstairs grieving, Louise is actually rather happy that she is finally free from being contained by her husband. Louise looks out the window at a big and beautiful world. She has a completely new view of the world now. The adventitious death of her husband allows her to start thinking about making decisions for herself and seeing things without his opinion. Much like Louise’s situation, the husband constantly contains the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” to one room. She is enclosed in a large, yellow room because her husband says she is sick. The narrator is physically in need of human interaction. His keeping her inside this room is leading her to become more ill than she already is. Both of these women have been living with completely despondent spirits. As depicted in these two stories, Dorothy Hartman stat...
The narrator's insensitivity reveals itself early in the story when his wife's blind friend, Robert, comes for a visit after the death of his wife. Almost immediately in the beginning of the story the narrator admits "A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to." [Carver 2368] He even goes so far as to suggest to his wife that he take the man bowling. He hears the story of Robert's dead wife and can not even imagine " what a pitiful life this woman must have led." [Carver 2370] The narrator is superficial, only recognizing the external part of people and not recognizing the value of a person on the inside.
Being able to have an equal partner and feel heard is not only an important thing to have in a marriage but is an important thing for one’s health. Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses her story “The Yellow Wallpaper” to discuss and emphasize the harmful effects this can have on women. With a captivating plot Gilman keeps the reader interested, and with powerful symbolism and themes teaches the reader the importance of a woman’s status in her
Marriage sometimes refers to the happiest time for each couple. However, marriage can lead women to having depression. In the story “The yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, published in 1892, the author is giving out a point of view that women often get depression from their spouses. Gilman is a famous feminist, who believes that women should receive the same privileges as men. In the story, the woman was being controlled by her husband John. John was a doctor and he was educated enough to tell his wife what she needed to do for her sickness; however, she could not argue with her husband because she was not smart enough to reject his decision. Since the sickness has made this woman become a weak person, she also couldn’t fight against her husband in physical ways. The time period of this story was nearly 1800, so the woman in the story must have the idea of male domination. This traditional idea has made this woman afraid to stand up for herself. At the end of the story, the depression has made this woman become mentally insane and respect is one major theme of this story.