Use Of Anxiety In A Rose For Emily By Barthelme

Throughout the story, Barthelme method of writing is disconnected making it difficult to pinpoint what is happening during the first read through. The interaction between the couple seems to jump around as they abruptly switch between subjects rather than a smooth transition between subjects. For example, when the husband tells his wife she is supposed to be curing the ham, she tells him that the ham died and continues with, “I couldn’t cure it. I tried everything. You don’t love me anymore. The penicillin was stale. I’m ugly and so are the children. It said to tell you goodbye” (Barthelme 450). The wife in this instance begins talking about the ham and then switches by commenting on how her husband doesn’t love her and that her children are

Barthelme uses the dialogue of this couple to acknowledge the reality of socio-cultural anxiety of middle-class families. The socio-cultural anxiety is expressed in a way that the characters feel trapped in the middle-class rather than climbing the social ladder. In the opening paragraph, not only is the outside environment is described, but this description flows into thoughts of being stuck. Barthelme writes, “There was a butterfly locked inside that mailbox, surely; would it ever escape? Or was the quality of mailboxes stick to her forever, like her parents, like her name” (Barthelme 450) in which the butterfly represents people and the mailbox represents the different social classes. In this quote tackles the hardships of being stuck in the same place and never changing, whether it being dull everyday life, social class, or in terms of moving forward in a career. People want to feel like they are achieving something in life and moving forward rather than being stuck in the same place, or in this case the mailbox. Society commends people that climb the social ranks and often think highly of those who have made it to the upper class, but it is difficult to move up from the working class. Therefore, people will worry and feel anxious about their worth and if they will every progress through life. In addition, the

In this story, the wife appears to be the more insecure individual in the couple. When the wife first appears in the story, she starts mentioning to her husband about how she is “ugly” (Barthelme 450) and that their “children are ugly” (Barthelme 450). When she said, “I tried everything. You don’t love me anymore. I’m ugly and so are the children. It said to tell you goodbye” (Barthelme 450), it shows her insecurity of both her appearances and her husband’s feelings towards her. Also, when she is talking about the ham, she was not just talking about the ham she was curing, but rather the fact that the relationship with her husband is dying. As the conversation goes on, she explains that she wants a TR-4, take their, “ugly children and drive away. To Wellfleet. I’d take all the ugliness out of your life” (Barthelme 451) meaning that she wants to leave her husband, and take away the ugliness, in this case, means sadness, in order to make everyone happier. One of the important symbols for the relationship is the ham. The first time she mentions “the ham died” (Barthelme 450), she is referring to their marriage failing, that the spark between them is nott there. She even goes on to say that she “loved that ham” (Barthelme 451) and proceeded to talk about when she first met him. The ham