Essay about An Analytical View of Say Yes by Tobias Wolff

As the narrator, Claire creates an emotional and compassionate tone throughout the story. Her dialogue constantly consists of words such as “honey”, “mommy”, “love”, which constitutes to the overall mood of the text (Carver 363). Additionally, she is constantly catering to her husband and child by cooking, cleaning, and performing tasks of the typical “stay-at-home” mom. Her affectionate personality, want for control, and mother-like performance plays a role in Carver’s explanation of the stereotypical mother and wife.

To continue, the story emphasizes on the lover's cleaning of the house. The author begins the story through both the lovers "cleaning [their] house" and also the morning after their argument they both started to clean the mess. Through the repetition of this action it signifies that even though they had already made up, they still had unresolved issues and still four years later continue to clean as to symbolize that those issues still remain. Upon the finding of the knife, the woman disregards the knife as something not even remotely significant, as the narrator did and "went into the next room and continued to clean". Because she does not want to deal with the strains that argument put on their relationship, she continues to clean. The narrator after sweeping everything off the table after their argument and seeing the mess, says that he thought he had "destroyed everything". Cleaning was his way of fixing what he thought had broken in their relationship and continues to clean as a symbol of still trying to take back what he had done.

“No more maybe” by Gish Jen tells the story of an immigrant Chinese family getting accustomed to American culture and facing some other new challenges. It is narrated by a woman whose husband’s parents have recently arrived to the United States from China. She is pregnant, and her parents-in-law have come to visit them mainly for that reason. The story begins with a discussion between both parents-in-law about the safety of taking free English classes in America. Since then, the narrator starts to point out the differences between her husband’s parents in behavior and habits. She first indicates her relationship with her mother-in-law and the way she is getting used to some American costumes. They seem to enjoy a positive relationship. The narrator says how her mother-in-law cooks for her special food for the pregnancy and they both cooperate with

The narrator though an educator, is not very good at verbalizing his emotions. He tends to be the person who keeps everything inside

Wolff uses colors to symbolize a hatred for an alternative race in this short story. The

Up to this point, the reader might think the young wife was an innocent youth, singing and dancing her way through life, wearing white dresses and driving her older husband crazy. But there is a dark side to her personality too.

a bigot and a loner, insensitive and intolerant, and that their marriage is a strained one"

Introduction: John’s domination over the Narrator is evident from the beginning of the short story. The Narrator remains unknown and takes the identity of John’s wife not an individual human being. This identity, further explored, becomes her personality because she obeys John’s every command.

The narrator was very absurd in the way she wrote. She lost touch with the outer world. At this point, she was faced with relationships, objects and situations that seem innocent and natural, but in actuality, it was very bizarre. From the beginning, the readers sees that the narrator is imaginative and a highly expressive women. She remembered that she frightened

This dramatization brings the reader to the realization that the protagonist’s stream of consciousness narration is very unpredictable, yet will ultimately lead to his ability to expose his true feelings as the story develops. The author clearly likes to represent this feeling of indecision with poetic illustration as it is used several times in both stories. In “Newlywed”, the narrator vividly describes his mixed feelings toward his wife, Atsuko, during the peak of his epiphany-like experience:

The author writes the story in a very interesting way. The way that there are only a few descriptions scattered about and that it focuses on dialogue is what allows us to figure out what the characters are speaking about and to find the intentions behind their words. The subject of this short narrative stands out boldly. Though it was written in

Marriage is a full-time job on its own and people should communicate with each other in order to have a healthy marriage for them to love and appreciate each other so they can grow old together. Most of us know by now that the fairy tale happily ever after stories are full of holes. Carver emphasizes that when there is no communication in the marriage the wife starts to feel unhappy and frustrated with him. The wife’s attitude with her husband suggests that the marriage doesn’t seem to be working for her. Carver states, “My wife finally took her eyes off the blind man and looked at me. I had the feeling she didn’t like what she saw. I shrugged (38). ” There was unhappiness in the marriage and the narrator and his wife didn’t seem to get along. In other words the

This clever story is crafted down to the smallest detail - every word and expression implies something, often has a second meaning and so manipulates the reader's opinion. The factor that makes this story even more

       As the tale begins we immediately can sympathize with the repressive plight of the protagonist.  Her romantic imagination is obvious as she describes the "hereditary estate" (Gilman, Wallpaper 170) or the "haunted house" (170) as she would like it to be.  She tells us of her husband, John, who "scoffs" (170) at her romantic sentiments and is "practical to the extreme" (170).  However, in a time

In this part of the story, I found out the wife’s name: Ann. She cuts her hand and the husband immediately reacts by helping his wife by getting a band aid. He makes sure she is alright and comforts her. It seemed to me that this was some kind of peace offering to drop the conversation that his wife was so upset about. At this part of the story, I sided with the husband because of how considerate he is to his wife. He then let his wife go and relax while he finished the house chores. The wife, obviously wanting to finish the conversation, didn’t accept the peace offering. She made it quite clear when the first thing she asked was “so you wouldn’t have married me if I’d been black?” The husband becomes frustrated by the repeated topic and snaps back. This reveals the stubbornness of the wife and almost fake image of the husband. The husband seems to put on an act that he cares for his wife and does chores around the house, but does he truly care and understand his wife’s true self?