Interracial Marriage In Tobias Wolff's 'Say Yes'

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Women and men always have different perspectives on topics. Not always will a married couple see eye to eye. Even individuals from the same culture and race still have different opinions. A couple may spend their life together, consequently to discover they have grown apart. As a result a husband and wife were in the kitchen, doing the dishes when the topic of interracial marriage came up. Tobias Wolff’s short story “Say Yes” uses the main characters point of view and symbolism to address interracial marriage and racism.
Ann the wife in the story asks why it is a bad idea for white people to marry black people. The husband’s response “I went to school with blacks, I’ve worked with blacks, and we’ve always gotten along just fine. I don’t need you coming along now implying that I’m a racist” (Wolff 1). The husband is not given a name in the story, which makes it somewhat difficult to identify what ethnicity he is. This suggests the husband’s point of view could be …show more content…

This can be seen as a shift from a clear simple conversation to unclear cloudy opinions and point of views. The husband tries to diffuse the situation after his wife, Ann cuts her thumb. He runs to the first aid kit realizing if he did this for her she would appreciate running to her aid that she would forget their conversation about interracial marriage. When reading more into the story the tone of both the husband and wife change. He is getting annoyed that his wife repeats his response as if to make him sound crass. Also one could assume that this couple has been married for some time. The husband states “In another thirty years they would be dead” (Wolff 3). This symbolizes that they are a mature, middle aged, couple realizing they are not the people they once were. There is an obvious tension building up between Ann and her husband. In addition Ann and her husband know what buttons to push each other to get their point

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