The Happiness and Misery of Monsieur Lantin
At the beginning of “The Jewels”, Lantin meets the woman of his dreams (and of every other man’s) and immediately falls in love with and marries her. Their lives go on in perfect harmony and happiness, and every day Lantin falls more deeply in love with his adorable wife. Lantin has only two complaints about the character of his wife: her love of the theater and her love of fake jewelry. Eventually Lantin stops going to the theater, and his wife goes alone. After returning from the theater one night, his wife develops a cough and dies eight days later. This point marks the beginning of Lantin’s misery as he uncovers more about his wife than he might have wanted to know.
Lantin is very happily married to his wife, and the reader gets the impression that everyone else in the community feels she is a fine woman to have as a wife. “Happy the man who wins her love! He could not find a better wife” (Maupassant 105). The reader learns just how devoted he is to his wife when he confesses that after six years of marriage, he loves his wife even more than he did at first. Lantin’s life seems a perfect picture of what a happy marriage should be, but then it changes suddenly and drastically.
When Lantin’s wife comes home one night with a chill and dies eight days later, Lantin is devastated. His life is filled with sorrow and despair and even “time, the...
The storyline elements in Lantana were masterfully crafted by the director as each interaction and relationship showed a different aspect of the results of jealousy and infidelity in relationships. I found the differences in the relationships themselves, as well as the ways in which each participant in the relationships reacted to their relational situations to be rather realistic, and ultimately, fairly educational. Though the film was clearly a drama and an art piece, it successfully reinforced many of the ideas communicated in lecture, and helped to explain the differences in subsets of jealousy and infidelity. Overall, the film, and the actors’ portrayals of the characters, provided an in-depth look at the ways in which jealousy and infidelity affect intimate relationships.
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.
Bill Cosby once said that, “For two people in a marriage to live together day after day is unquestionably the one miracle the Vatican has overlooked.” J.J. Lewis (1995-2009) This famous comedian could not have been more correct when recognizing that every marriage will face a multiple number of challenges and is often difficult. Couples, once married, must find a way to end any struggles in order for the marriage to be successful. Marital traditions have changed greatly over the centuries and due to this, the opinion of what an ‘ideal marriage” consists of has changed 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. This can be clearly seen through an examination of: the social, and political environment of the late fourteenth century, and the merchant’s opinions on the area of obedience to a husband, and how to avoid infidelity.
The relationship between a husband and wife is one that is sacred and requires support. Linda Loman faces a tough task as the spouse to Willy Loman. The relationship is one-sided and in many situations, Willy Loman ignores her when she speaks. With this in mind, Linda Loman disregards the negative aspects about her husband and instead glorifies them, converting the negative aspects to positive. This constant struggle to appease her husband chains her role as a wife and also inhibits her freedom in the spousal relationship. Without a
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.
The fact that the fictional mothers and daughters of the story have unhappy marriages creates a common ground on which they can relate. However, marriage has different meanings for each generation in this book. In the mothers’ perspective, marriage is permanent and not always based on love. Especially with their marriages in China, which was a social necessity that they must secretly endure in order to be happ...
as two different points in time. This shows the readers that this unhappy marriage issue is not a very unusual problem. It happens to many people in many diffe...
There are always problems in every relationship, in every marriage. With strong communication, acceptance and a love for one another, these challenges can be overcome. In Margaret Laurence's Manawaka Cycle, the characters all have enormous problems in their relationships. In the books The Stone Angel, The Fire-Dwellers, and The Diviners, the characters' marriages all have varying degrees of trouble. However, through hard work and perseverance, the partners survive and grow. Each relationship in these books has two or three problems, that when combined, become daunting. However, the characters' real problem is that they are alone in their marriage. Margaret Laurence states that "men and women suffer equally; the tragedy is not that they suffer, but that they suffer alone."1 These men and women are alone, not communicating nor respecting each other, which leads to personal problems in and in their confidence in themselves and each other.
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.?
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.
eventually I felt that marriage was the central keyword in the book. I will concentrate on the situation
... in a husband’s attitude towards his wife: he dominates her, shapes her lifestyle, make her live for him instead of living for herself. Unfortunately, the wife accepts his behavior because she loves him and doesn’t want to lose him. At the same time, the feeling of obedience in order to prevent divorce lives in her only at the beginning of their marriage. As the years pass by, she becomes used to the subordinate mode of life that her husband has thrown on her. And after some time she finds out that she hates her lifestyle because she has devoted all her life to her husband, and the only thing she wants is freedom.
married. However, “for pragmatic reasons, the author’s conclusions favor marriage as the ultimate solution, but her pairings predict happiness” (“Austen, Jane”). Als...
Mrs. Linde shows her loyalty to her family when she did not think that she “had the right” to refuse her husband’s marriage proposal. After taking into consideration her sick mother, her brothers, and Krogstad having money. She married for the welfare of her family.
Marriage a la Mode, by John Dryden, is an ode to the concept of marriage and love within the period of Restoration England. Dryden, presumably, presents two pairs of couples, Rhodophil and Doralice, as well as Melantha and Palamede, in a way that expresses an imperative tone towards marital relations. Throughout the playwright, he uses these couples and their mistresses to allocate the issue of broken, miserable, thorny marriages. Although marriage was common, there was a strong presence of moral emancipation, which Dryden presents through these relationships. These themes of dissatisfaction and obligation towards the concept of marriage are noted throughout the playwright, as Dryden uncovers how each character feels.