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 …show more content…
He’s glad to be home but does not know how Norma Jean feels about his homecoming. Leroy questions whether she still has feelings for him or if he is just a constant reminder of their baby, Randy’s, death. He notices Norma Jean picked up on some new hobbies like exercising and he realizes they don’t really know each other anymore. The lack of communication makes Leroy wonder if she will eventually leave him. Instead of trying to see where they stand, he continues to remain discreet throughout the …show more content…
His wife’s old friend, Robert’s, wife had died so he came to stay the night before visiting her relatives. When the narrator’s wife tries explaining Robert’s situation, he say’s things like, “Right then my wife filled me in with more detail than I cared to know.” While his wife is good at communicating, the narrator just doesn’t care. Towards the end of the story, another example of his selfishness is when he says, “My wife opened up her eyes and gazed at us. She sat up on the sofa, her robe hanging open. She said, ‘What are you doing? Tell me, I want to know.’ I didn't answer her.” Subsequently, his comment displays his lack of respect towards her and he literally ignores what she asks him. Insecurities in relationships cause unwanted doubt and anxiety. It creates an unstable partnership that only becomes more destructive the worse it gets. For Leroy, his character relentlessly focuses on how Norma Jean feels about him. While he is confident of his love for her, he is unsure of what she still wants. Leroy is fixated on the idea of building her a log house—one he thought she always wanted. When he discovers that isn’t the case, he panics and tries to think of something else that could help their relationship before it is too
However, he makes little effort to find another alternative to make a living. Realizing that he had missed so many things in life when he was still "on the road," he wanted to enjoy the freedom he had now, and to take more notice of the things happening around him. He no longer wanted to "fly past the scenery". His wife, Norma Jean, however, fails to acknowledge Leroy's attitude. Expecting Leroy to assume the responsibility of caring for the household, watching him idle around, taking up needlepoint and crafting, agitated Norma Jean.
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.
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.
Leroy arrives home from a drive and finds Norma Jean in tears.” (Mason p. 50). Norma
The close outside friendship between the narrator’s wife and Robert, the blind man, provokes the narrator’s insecurities. This friendship has lasted for ten long years. During those years, they have exchanged countless voice tapes wherein they both tell each other what has happened in their respective lives. Because of this, the narrator feels that his wife has told Robert more than Robert needs to know. The narrator laments, "she told him everything or so it seemed to me" (1054). The narrator’s fear is somehow confirmed when Robert arrives and says that he feels like they have already met (1055). The narrator is left wondering what his wife has disclosed. This murky situation leaves the narrator feeling insecure, especially when he sees the warm interaction between his wife and Robert.
The first conflict in this story is between Leroy and his distance from his wife for such a long time. Mrs. Moffitt has been trying to cope with her husbands’ absence by doing other activities such as: working out, going back to school, and visiting with her mother. Another conflict resides within Leroy himself. He has not been there for his wife and he is trying to make it up to her in any way he can. This couple has been through the loss of an infant child in addition to Leroy’s absence. This is another issue that is causing them to experience the conflicts they do. Mr. and Mrs. Moffitt do not speak of this lost child, which causes more conflict between their marriage together. Leroy, once being settled at home with nothing to do, began to work with his hands to construct or design objects. He wanted to build his wife a log cabin as he was making replicas out of toothpicks. I think him wanting to build this house is to prove to himself and his wife that he can still be productive and good for something. The relationship Leroy has with Norma Jean’s mother is quite different. Any time she comes around, he makes jokes instead of having real conversation with her. I think he makes the jokes to ease the tension and to not address real issues that are present. Leroy has also stated that all those years driving in the same neighborhood he did not take the time to notice how much it had changed.
... chapter in Norma Jean and Leroy's life now that they will be apart. There is nothing left in their marriage that can keep them together because according to Norma Jean it was over a long time ago.
This story reveals to the reader how distance and low communication can separate individuals from each other. Leroy, the narrator, is a person that has lived separated from his wife Norma Jean for a lot of time because of the job he has. This has created a gap between the two of them. After the accident when Leroy has to stay in the house to recuperate, they find out that they both really don't know each other. He is having a lot of time on his hands, so he decides to build a model of the house he promised Norma Jean when they got married. This only creates a problem since his wife doesn't want a log cabin. Leroy is finally noticing that everything has changed, that nothing is the same as before. He was to busy or hardly ever in town to realize all the changes that where happening around him. When he tries to get closer to Norma Jean, apparently it separates them more. During their trip to Shiloh, Norma realizes that everything is going back to the way it was before Leroy started his trucking job. This makes her feel eighteen again and she is not willing to do that again. This creates a confusing situation for Leroy because he does not understand why Norma is acting that way. Finally he realizes that all that time apart has created a relationship where Norma pre...
In “The Storm” and “The Story of an Hour” the woman seeked freedom from out their marriage whether it was for the moment, a lifetime, or a few months. In the short story “Cathedral” observed marriage chronicles when the husband wished his wife would speak good of him infront of Robert and the lack of communication between the wife and Robert. When reading the story you observe how the wife treats and talks to Robert. She never offered to get more food for her husband but offers the blind man. She gets upset on how Robert talks to the blind man to spark a conversation. “Did you have a good train ride? I said. Which side of the train did you sit on, by the way? What a question, which side! My wife said. What’s it matter which side? She said I just asked” ( Carver, pg
The narrator also feels intimidated by his wife?s relationship with the blind man. When he is telling of her friendship with Robert h...
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.
In today’s society, the notion and belief of growing old, getting married, having kids, and a maintaining of a happy family, seems to be a common value among most people. In Kevin Brockmeier’s short story, “The Ceiling,” Brockmeier implies that marriage is not necessary in our society. In fact, Brockmeier criticizes the belief of marriage in his literary work. Brockmeier reveals that marriage usually leads to or ends in disaster, specifically, all marriages are doomed to fail from the start. Throughout the story, the male protagonist, the husband, becomes more and more separated from his wife. As the tension increases between the protagonist and his wife, Brockmeier symbolizes a failing marriage between the husband and wife as he depicts the ceiling in the sky closing upon the town in which they live, and eventually crushing the town entirely as a whole.
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.
From the beginning of his tale, the husband is quite bland on the subject of love. This is present when he tells the part about his wife's first husband, even going as far as to say the man doesn't deserve to be named because "he was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want" (348). When he tells of Beulah, Robert's wife, and her tragic death, he shows no compassion in mocking her for marrying a blind man. He even asks if the woman was a "Negro" because of her name. His materialistic views shine through when he feels actually pity for her because she could "never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one" (349). His lack of compassion for the tale of the blind man's marriage tells the reader that maybe the husband himself doesn't believe in love. When he refers to his wife's first husband as "this man who'd first enjoyed her favors" and "shrugs" when he thinks his wife is disappointed in his actions, it informs the reader he may look at relationships, even his own, as more of a business deal than a devotion of love (348, 350). His wry humor is major indication of his sarcastic character. He even makes a crack to his wife about the blind man befo...
This theme goes hand in hand with the theme portrayed in Hills Like White Elephants. In the story the narrator, whose name is never mentioned, has something against his wife’s blind friend, Robert, due to the fact that he cannot see. Robert visits the narrator and the narrator’s wife for company. It seems that the narrator had a preconceived idea that all blind people are boring, depressed, stupid, and are barely even human at all based on the fact that they cannot see the world. Robert, although he is blind, is a caring and outgoing person who is extremely close with the narrator’s wife. The fact that Robert is extremely close with the narrator’s wife should be reason enough for the narrator to accept him as a person, but he is a cold and shallow person with no friends. His relationship with his wife is lacking good communication and seems very bland. Robert’s wife recently passed away, but their relationship was deep and they were truly in love with each other. The narrator was blind to how a woman could work with, sleep with, be intimate with, and marry Robert as has he talks about how he felt sorry for her. The narrator is superficial and does not understand true love or