"IND AFF or Out of Love in Sarajevo" by Fay Weldon
In “IND AFF, or Out of Love in Sarajevo,” Fay Weldon uses the setting of her story to teach a young woman a lesson in morality, and about life and love. This unnamed young woman narrates the story from the first person point of view, giving the reader a private glimpse into her inner struggle. The young woman is the protagonist in the story, and is a dynamic character; learning and growing in the few pages Weldon gives the reader a chance to get acquainted with her. Setting the story in Sarajevo allows Weldon to use historical events to teach the young woman about life. The largest role that setting plays in “IND AFF” is the historical event, which took place in this small town in Bosnia. An assassin named Princip took the life of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, in Sarajevo. This event is said to have propelled Europe into war, a war that came to be known as World War I. Visiting the town of Sarajevo the young woman ponders Princip’s decision to murder the Archduke and his wife, and these thoughts move her into a different course of action.
Weldon’s story is filled with irony, as the young woman seeks justification for an affair with a man who was, “supervising my thesis on varying concepts of morality and duty” (Weldon 147). Peter is her professor; his duty is to teach her about morality. As a married man, Peter is burdening her with the choice between her own morality and a struggle to be like her sister. The woman’s sister urges her to “just go for it, sister. If you can unhinge a marriage, it’s ripe for the unhinging, it would happen sooner or later, it might as well be you” (150). She wrestles with the idea of destroying a marriage, and ov...
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...hange the fate of a nation or the life of a marriage, but only if they are already filled with turmoil and discontent. A contented, satisfied people will not be propelled into a war with the death of one man, as a marriage will not fail simply because a pretty face tempts a spouse. The young woman is faced with a moral decision, should she be “the shot that lit the spark that fired the timber that started the war” (148). In the end, she cannot have that on her conscience, and realizes that “a bit later or a bit sooner…might have made the difference” (148). Throughout the story, the nameless student changes and grows, influenced by the setting of the story. She begins a woman in denial, “I suppose Princip’s actions couldn’t really have started World War I” (148), and comes to realize that she is not willing to burden herself with the guilt of destroying a marriage.
Many war stories today have happy, romantic, and cliche ending; many authors skip the sad, groosom, and realistic part of the story. W. D. Howell’s story, Editha and Ambrose Bierce’s story, An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge both undercut the romantic plots and unrealistic conclusions brought on by many stories today. Both stories start out leading the reader to believe it is just another tpyical love-war senario, but what makes them different is the one-hundred and eighty degrees plot twist at the end of each story.
"I don't want loose women in my family," he had cautioned all his daughters. Warnings were delivered communally, for even though there was usually the offending daughter of the moment, every woman's character could use extra scolding” (Alvarez,
Annemarie is a normal young girl, ten years old, she has normal difficulties and duties like any other girl. but these difficulties aren’t normal ones, she’s faced with the difficulties of war. this war has made Annemarie into a very smart girl, she spends most of her time thinking about how to be safe at all times “Annemarie admitted to herself,snuggling there in the quiet dark, that she was glad to be an ordinary person who would never be called upon for courage.
...author uses satire to give a surprising twist in how the character’s behaviour and personality will affect the plot of the story. He who has both revenge and pride can really influence how he behaves in a positive or negative way, depending on his own judgment. His planning skills and actions are not very tactical or well thought out. Despite that his body is flexible and fast from training for preparations to kill Count Rugen, he is not able to use it correctly because of his foolishness and he cannot comprehend rationally. What he wants is stronger than how he should think with careful deductions before act while still has to learn to be self-reliant more regularly. Although his pride and talents of a fencer compensate for his weak brain, it is not enough to succeed in his goals if he is not able to anticipate what can happen and determine different possibilities.
... Now, because Editha remained naïve about the issues of war and the loss of her husband, she resumed to believe that sending George off was the right decision. “If Editha had changed her views, she would have had to admit to herself that she sent George off to die in a war and fought for the wrong reasons. Why live with the guilt when there is the ability to pretend that George died for very noble purposes” (Belasco and Johnson 113-24). Editha limits her fault by remaining unaware and therefore feels innocent of the harm she’s inflicted on the people she cares about. The significance of the stories is to appreciate life for what it’s worth. We are given a chance to create something extraordinary and trying to change those around us will affect us for the worst. The accepting of others for who they truly are is what defines the character of one person from the next.
In order to understand most of the events that took place in the novel it is essential to understand how the war erupted. After Serbia refused to apologize to Austria for the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, Germany pushed Austria to declare war. Germany’s desire to start a war can be explained by the internal tensions that were increasing in the country at the time. The assassination was a timely scapegoat to direct the peoples attention and animosity to external sources. In short, on July 28, 1914, Austria declared war on Serbia and the allies of each country joined in, starting this global war.
Pat Barker's riveting World War I novel Regeneration brilliantly exemplifies the effectiveness of fiction united with historical facts. While men aspired to gain glory from war and become heroes, Regeneration poignantly points out that not all of war was glorious. Rather, young soldiers found their aspirations prematurely aborted due to their bitter war experiences. The horrible mental and physical sicknesses, which plagued a number of soldiers, caused many men to withdraw from the battlefield. Feelings of guilt and shame haunted many soldiers as they found themselves removed from the heat of war. Men, however, were not the only individuals to experience such feelings during a time of historical upheaval. Women, too, found themselves at war at the dawn of a feminine revolution. One of the most contentious topics of the time was the practice of abortion, which comes to attention in chapter 17 on pages 202 and 203 of Barker's novel. Through Baker's ground-breaking novel, we learn how men and women alike discovered that in life, not all aspirations are realized; in fact, in times of conflict, women and men both face desperate situations, which have no definite solutions. Illustrated in Barker's novel by a young woman named Betty, and many broken soldiers, society's harsh judgments worsen the difficult circumstances already at hand.
...show us that the choices for women in marriage were both limited and limiting in their scope and consequences. As can be seen, it came down to a choice between honoring the private will of the self, versus, honoring the traditions and requirements of society as a whole. Women were subject to the conditions set down by the man of the house and because of the social inequality of women as a gender class; few fought the rope that tied them down to house, hearth, and husband, despite these dysfunctions. They simply resigned themselves to not having a choice.
Beauvoir’s thesis in The Married Woman revolves around women characterization and inferior nature oppressed by men in a marriage opening her piece comparing housework to “the torture of Sisyphus” (380). Using imagery and descriptive language, Beauvoir describes the expected duties of a women forced up by her husband as she is in “war against dust, stains, mud, and dirt she is fighting sin, wresting with Satan” (381). Beauvoir believes that the sanctity of marriage lies only in the males supremacy of women, as women are “temped—and the more so the greater pains she takes—to regard her work as an end in itself” (382). This comparison depicts marriage as a waste of life, rather than devoting “time and effort in such striving for originality and unique perfection” (382); the woman succumbs to marriage and housework. Beauvoir truly believed her ideology of marriage and lived her life accordingly to her death in 1986. Simone de Beauvoir’s account of marriage as scrupulous, demeaning, and “sadomasochistic” (381), repres...
...nd dates to him.” “And the real inner workings of a marriage, like most history, have escaped him” (Mason 232). The story suggests that it is impossible to wrap our minds around abstractions such as war and marriage and that all we can do is understand how they relate to our own lives.
In the dawn of the twentieth century, while political turmoil spurred tension amongst European nations, a single bullet incited one of the bloodiest, most gruesome wars to ever happen in human history. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Austrian Archduke, by the hands of a Bosnian Serb propelled a conflict of gigantic proportions, pitting country against country and dividing the continent into two rival factions. However, the mayhem that ensued was for nothing. It is evident that the war was unnecessary, for its roots were pointlessly trivial, it could have been avoided, and yet it left a shattered world behind, damaging the world in a way that would take decades to repair.
...is story, Hemingway brings the readers back the war and see what it caused to human as well as shows that how the war can change a man's life forever. We think that just people who have been exposed to the war can deeply understand the unfortunates, tolls, and devastates of the war. He also shared and deeply sympathized sorrows of who took part in the war; the soldiers because they were not only put aside the combat, the war also keeps them away from community; people hated them as known they are officers and often shouted " down with officers" as they passing. We have found any blue and mournful tone in this story but we feel something bitter, a bitter sarcasm. As the war passing, the soldiers would not themselves any more, they became another ones; hunting hawks, emotionless. They lost everything that a normal man can have in the life. the war rob all they have.
Marriage is a powerful union between two people who vow under oath to love each other for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. This sacred bond is a complicated union; one that can culminate in absolute joy or in utter disarray. One factor that can differentiate between a journey of harmony or calamity is one’s motives. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a novel of manners, where Elizabeth Bennet and her aristocratic suitor Mr. Darcy’s love unfolds as her prejudice and his pride abate. Anton Chekhov’s “Anna on the Neck” explores class distinction, as an impecunious young woman marries a wealthy man. Both Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Anton Chekhov’s “Anna on the Neck” utilize
Jane does not experience a typical family life throughout the novel. Her various living arrangements led her through different households, yet none were a representation of the norm of family life in the nineteenth century. Through research of families in the nineteenth century, it is clear that Jane’s life does not follow with the stereotypical family made up of a patriarchal father and nurturing mother, both whose primary focus was in raising their children. Jane’s life was void of this true family experience so common during the nineteenth century. Yet, Jane is surrounded by men, who in giving an accurate portrayal of fathers and masculinity in the nineteenth century, fulfill on one hand the father role that had never been present in her life, and on the other hand the husband portrait that Jane seeks out throughout the novel.
In the satiric novel, Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray exposes and examines the vanities of 19th century England. Numerous characters in the novel pursue wealth, power, and social standing, often through marriage or matrimony. Thackeray effectively uses the institution of marriage to comment on how these vanities often come at the expense of the true emotions of passion, devotion, and, of course, love.