the woman taken in isolation

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“The Woman Taken in Adultery” by Jean Thompson focuses on a mother of two girls and a wife who is dissatisfied with how her middle aged life is going. Her two daughters are in their prime, attracting boys and beginning to live their life the way she wishes she could; and her husband does not notice her as much anymore with their main conversations revolving around dinner and small talk. Her life lacks the intimacy a married woman should have; therefore, she ventures out of her monogamous relationship and is taken in adultery. Thompson does an exquisite job with changing up her plot in this short story; instead of focusing on adolescents and emerging adults, she decides focus on a middle aged woman who has lost her sense of identity and intimacy, trying to regain both by committing an affair. By being able to portray this state of psychological moratorium, Thompson allows the readers, of all ages, to understand the fact that life is not perfect and one may do selfish things as a result of small challenges in their life without realizing the repercussions of them. This can further be analyzed in conjunction with the Slater article pertaining to the link between identity, intimacy, and generativity. The Slater article entitled “Generativity Versus Stagnation: An Elaboration of Erikson’s Adult Stage of Human Development,” focuses primarily on the ideas of how Erikson’s epigenetic chart of psychological development can be analyzed deeper than he had originally done it, explaining that although one can go back and forth on the chart, ultimately you need to have a sense of identity in order to create intimacy and eventually generate generativity instead of stagnation. What can be taken from here and applied to “The Woman Taken in Adulter... ... middle of paper ... ...her sense of self, trying to find classes and activities that will help her create one, despite having a family that continuously ignores her and makes her feel like a fly on the wall. By the end of the story she becomes more involved with her kids and more honest with her husband because he met the so-called paramour. Therefore she ultimately does reach the generativity stage of Erikson’s psychological development while creating some type of intimacy along the way. The implication of reading and understanding this Thompson short story is that we can all learn that life is not perfect from it. People make mistakes, but they are only considered bad if you do not learn from them. In the case of being unfaithful, although it is not healthy for a relationship, sometimes it allows a person to find out who they truly are and help determine the way they should go in life.

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