Break It Down Analysis

When most people eat at fast food establishments, they do not think about what exactly is going into their bodies, but Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson want to change that. Their combined efforts result in the book Chew on This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know About Fast Food, which exploits the gruesome truths behind fast food. Schlosser and Charles begin their nonfiction work by explaining how fast food restaurant were created. Then, they transition into revealing what was changed in the process of establishing the fast food industry. Their discoveries occur in most fast food restaurant, but they focus on the corruption in McDonald’s tendencies.

“For What It’s Worth” relates strongly to the actions taking place. The emotions of Springfield were released in this song. Many people recognize the same emotions as Springfield. This relates to others because of the conflict and crime that is occurring. Buffalo does a wonderful job of describing the misery and suffering of the people.

Broken marriages are also a major theme in Interpreter of Maladies. Mr. and Mrs. Das married at a young age. Although the story doesn’t state whether they had relationship issues in their early states, it is almost evident they were not the happiest couple before marriage either. That would explain why Mrs. Das is not in love with Mr. Das. “… The more premarital conflict, the less satisfaction couples reported with their relationships at the follow-up assessment and the less the wives reported being in love (Thomas N. Bradbury).” Another reason we could predict Mr. and Mrs. Das did not have a healthy early relationship is their lack of communication skills. “…several studies have found evidence that later communication can be predicted from early satisfaction (Thomas N. Bradbury).” If their relationship was built upon a strong foundation in the early stages, it would have been easier for them to communicate in their later marital stages.

“Why Did I Get Married?” directed and produced by Tyler Perry is a movie based on four couples who take a reunion vacation to the Colorado Mountains in order to reunite with friends from college. On this vacation things didn’t go according to plan. Throughout the movie there was heartbreak, infidelity, suppressed feelings, conflict, and secrets raging throughout each of the couples’ relationship in some aspect. With these unfortunate events occurred at various times throughout the film it cause their trip to evolve from a place to relax, enjoy friends, and time off from work into an emotional and tense atmosphere with the involved couple seeking validation from the other couples on the reason why their marriages are the way they are. Even though the movie ended on a good note in their celebration of Janet Jackson’s character (Pat) receiving an award one of the marriages did not survive. This couple’s relationship will be my focus for this paper.

As time passes in a relationship, it is inevitable that confrontations are bound to occur. Whether small disagreements created from minor issues, to mediocre arguments based on daily matters, to serious incidents that can reflect relationship taboos, it is a couple’s perception and understanding of each other that can strengthen or weaken their union. The poem “How It Will End” by Denise Duhamel portrays two couples involved in similar matters as those previously described. One couple is having, what appears to be, an argument at the beach and the second couple is watching them from afar, as they’re on a boardwalk. As the poem progresses, the second couple’s assumptions of what

Love waxes timeless. It is passionate and forbidden and a true head rush. Marriage, on the other hand, is practical, safe, a ride up the socioeconomic ladder. In "The Other Paris," Mavis Gallant weaves the tale of Carol and Howard, a fictional couple who stand on the verge of a loveless marriage, to symbolize the misguided actions of the men and women in the reality of the 1950s, the story's setting. By employing stereotypical, ignorant, and altogether uninteresting characters, Gallant highlights the distinction between reality and imagination and through the mishaps and lack of passion in their courtship mockingly comments on society?s views of love and marriage.

In “The Other Paris,” two characters, Carol and Howard Mitchell are soon-to-be married young adults whose actions are completely influenced by the norms of society. The author, Mavis Gallant, provides clear social commentary on the societal influences on marriage through satirical uses of irony and mockery, the use of a omniscient narrator, and substantial characterization of the relationship between the couple to show the reader how ridiculous and formulaic the “pillars of marriage” can be, and how society ultimately determines which aspects of these pillars receive emphasis.

The main idea she imparts is that disillusionment caused by brief courtship leads to disappointment, loss of love, and ultimately, divorce. By utilizing Suzie and Peters’s brief, nine month courtship, Pratz exemplifies her main point. She states, “the disappointment eroded their love and affection, which soured their perception of each other’s personalities, creating feelings of ambivalence” (Pratz 67). Pratz also creates parallels between her own failed marriage and the failed marriage of Suzie and Peter. By drawing connections between the recurring idea of a short courtship and divorce, Pratz adds personal experiences and ultimately discredits her point; she adds bias as to if Huston’s claim is true because she was personally impacted and has experiences that coincidentally

"Dey gointuh make ‘miration ‘cause mah love didn’t work lak they love, if dey ever had any. Then you must tell ‘em dat love ain’t somethin’ lak uh grindstone dat’s de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore." Love is different for everyone; sometimes you have to work for the one you love, and sometimes it just comes naturally. Love is not a fixed thing. It is as the ocean waters tide changing, and the way the shores have shape. Society has a certain outlook on what love is, but in actuality there is no one set way to love. “It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding. If they made a verdict that she didn’t want Tea Cake and wanted him dead, then that was a real sin and a shame. It was worse than murder.” Janie’s falsehood is her worse sin, not the actual murder. Murder, death, are things that relate to the morality theme that is throughout this essay, and the book.

People cheat, lie, undermine, and backstab all the time. People fall in and out of love constantly in a rapidly changing world. In Ray Bradbury’s “utopian” future world, marriage is almost the same. When Montag is trying to remember where and when he met Mildred, he can not, ““I don’t know,” she said. He was cold. “Can’t you remember.”” (40 Bradbury). This sudden revelation of his former blindness in his marriage comes from the attainment of knowledge, without knowledge marriage isn’t marriage. Knowledge is the true power in marriage, it keeps people together because when you have the capacity to think you have the ability to feel for another, which is necessary for a healthy relationship. This necessary factor of love is completely absent in this dystopian

Frequently, married couples value the stability of their relationship over the true pillars of marriage; trust, connection, compatibility, and most importantly, love. This leads to a desperate attempt to grow love in the relationship, which often fails. Such is the case in the short story, “The Other Paris,” by Mavis Gallant. Here, Gallant portrays her disagreement with this idea of love through her mocking tone and sarcastic characterization of Carol and Howard Mitchell.

The idea of marriage is praised in all the in last few stories we have read. Marriage or domesticated relationships are held to a very high status back then in Victorian times and even now with some people today. In The Coquette written by Hannah W. Foster, marriage played a huge part of the power and dominance in the text. The men’s sexual control from the text used sex and marriage for their own personal desires showed power. She was abused and if she would have lived, she would have been chastised for her actions.

Gallant’s use of sarcasm establishes narrative voice, and it turn provides social commentary on the shallowness of modern marriages. Gallant states that “From a series of helpful college lectures, she [Carol] learned that a common interest, such as a liking for Irish Setters, was the true basis for happiness,... Similar economic backgrounds, financial security, belonging to the same church - these were the pillars of the married union.” Gallant uses sarcasm to convey that these college lectures were not helpful at all. In fact, the college lectures - a symbol for society - spouts absurd facts about happiness in a marriage.

Modern literature is known for questioning society and its various conventions. One question that these works often ask is, “What is real?” Some modern authors explore this question by placing their characters within self-constructed illusions that are later shattered by the introduction of reality. Marriages are frequently at the center of this theme, with one spouse crafting an illusory impression of the other. Modern literature demonstrates that a marriage built upon illusion will falter when exposed to reality.

In the story “Happy Endings” the author Margaret Atwood gives 6 scenarios in alphabetical order from A to F of how a couples life could play out over the span of their lives. In these six scenarios Atwood uses satire to emphasize how interchangeable and simple each couples life is. In this story Atwood uses character, style, and point of view to chastise the desire for the everyday common life and the concern for only the “whats” in life and not “how or why”.