Paul Newman once said, “People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked” (74). There is no such thing as the perfect relationship, however, being involved in a healthy relationship is essential for a person to feel valued, safe, and happy. Unfortunately, in the situation of Kelly Sundberg’s personal essay “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” and Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of An Hour,” include extreme examples of unhealthy relationships. The essay “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” shares painful experiences of Sundberg’s physical and emotional abusive relationship with her husband Caleb, while “The Story of an Hour,” shares a rare reaction of a married woman, Louise Mallard, who explores her emotions cautiously when hearing about the death of her husband. Each woman faces their own prison created by their husbands. The two marriages represent the figurative meaning of doors being locked in a marriage. Both pieces of literature convey the theme of confinement by using the literary devices of foreshadowing, imagery, and conflict.
A life as a wife and/or a mother, is usually appreciated and is a happy life as well. A relationship between two people should consist of joy, commitment, responsibility, and most importantly love. For the two main characters in both stories ( “The Story of An Hour”, and “A Sorrowful Woman” ) this was not the case. The stories go against societies view with marriage roles and happiness.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Sinclair Ross’s “The Painted Door” are both stories about women protagonists who feel emotionally isolated from their husbands, who both go by the name John. Ann in “The Painted the Door” and the wife whose name may or may not be Jane in “The Yellow Wallpaper” are women who deal with emotional isolation. Emotional isolation is a state of isolation where one may be in a relationship but still feel emotional separation. In these two stories, both women feel emotionally isolated from their husbands due to lack of communication. In both stories, lack of communication results from one individual failing to disclose their true feelings and instead he or she are beating around the bush, hoping the other party will know what they want. If both parties directly disclose their desires and feelings to one another, there would be a better understanding of each other which as a result would help save marriages. This paper will look at how both women lack communication, how they both their approach their emotional isolation differently, and how their failure to communicate to their husbands and their approach, results in the failure to save their marriage. “The Painted Door” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” are stories that show how both women protagonists are emotionally isolated due to their failure to communicate their feelings and desires to their husbands. Instead of direct communication to their husbands, the women find other
In the short stories Hell-Heaven by Jhumpa Lahiri and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman both stories convey similar theme. Gilman’s short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, tells a story of a mentally unstable wife, while Lahiri’s short story, Hell-Heaven, informs us about a mother and daughters story from the perspective of her daughter. The characters from both stories come from different cultures but one thing they both have in common is their roles. They marry with the purpose of serving for household duties such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, and taking care of children if they have any. Also lets not forget another job they have is keeping the husband satisfied and happy! In both stories the marriages are in a way similar to
But what is one to do? I did write for a while inspite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal – having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition”. (Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper, 1898). Here one can see that the narrator wished to work and have a change in her domestic life, but the struggle to keep it a secret from her husband was too great because she knew he would not approve. Marriage, which is supposed to represent unity, love and the coming together of two equal partners was anything but that for the narrator. In the 19th century women were at the mercy of men, even though they marched forward for equality they were still very much dependent on their male counterparts. They were not allowed to have control over their assets and therefor marriage was the best solution to live a comfortable life seeing as their parents could not provide for their daughters forever. In The Yellow Wallpaper the prisonlike feeling that marriage causes the narrator, eventually leads to her insanity. Which for some was probably an actual occurrence in that era. More
The title “wife” was the inevitable fate that defined the female gender. It meant to be taken advantage of through household duties and sexual pleasures. It meant to be positioned where one’s own desires were insignificant. It meant to be erased and brushed away when a more alluring woman walked by. Unequivocally, Judy Brady mockingly berates both society’s impractical expectation of women, and their unappreciative partners.
John Florio wrote, “A deaf husband and a blind wife are always a happy couple.” This seventeenth century saying demonstrates the importance of marriage even if that means overlooking your spouse’s faults. During that time period, marital norms for women were expectations from society. The law’s Resolution of Women’s Right (1632); wrote, “All of them are understood either married or to be married” (…..). This demonstrates that marriage was the vocation for women. Broadside ballads allow us to further understand gender disparity, because women are portrait as “ephemeral, while men are often to be stable and fixed” (Murphy). Ballads, such as the “Patient Grissel” during
A Doll’s House: The Hopelessness of Marriage Having an optimistic viewpoint is something that is extremely important in everyone's lives. Despite that, there are certain aspects of life that simply can only be seen in a pessimistic way if they do not fit one’s expectations. Something that follows this pattern is marriage. If the husband and wife do not have good chemistry, their marriage simply will end in disaster.
The Rawlings’s marriage was built on intelligence and love that was designed for two well-educated people, who thought they knew what to expect in life. The female in this marriage was very smart, ambitious and talented, and so was her husband. In Susan’s mind, she was preparing for a beautiful relationship with all of the necessary foundations to build a successful marriage. She and her husband were a happy couple and were relishing in every moment of a carefree lifestyle before children.
Many intriguing characters in literature are devised from the apprehension women have encountered with men in the institution of marriage. Although portrayed differently, marriage is perceived as a constraint to the protagonists. This has been presented very well in “The Way Up To Heaven” penned by Roald Dahl who blatantly critiques the accepted societal roles of women in the mid-twentieth century and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin who highlights a woman’s plight in the 19th century. This is not only painted through the events of the stories, but also through the way each protagonist evolves into a dynamic character. The two main characters in these stories show many similarities, but they are also remarkably different in the ways
The social world of Jane Austen’s, Pride and Prejudice is one in which women’s rights were limited due to society’s patriarchal point of view. In Jane Austen’s world, women suffered on the account of their gender in a class pretension society making it only possible to increase social mobility through the mean of marriage. Austen depicts marriage as an economical business, needed to rescue women from succumbing to a life of poverty and disgrace. In a society that affirm the principle values of marriage as a social institution, Austen shows the many sides of marriage and satirizes marriage that base love on appearances, wealth and class by showing that it only leads to shame, unhappiness, and misery while true love leads to happiness and
During the Victorian Era, a stable life was not always easily attainable. A female did not have much choice in the choosing of her lifelong partner, as Austen exhibits in Laura and Jannetta’s cases. Both females had their marriages arranged by their fathers based upon the future husband’s success of societal norms (D:
In the 19th century, marriage was the primary interest for women because it was believed to be their sole means of happiness and comfort. For women, opportunities of living a life without a husband were scorned by all of society and nearly impossible; women had little choice but to search for their suitors. Women searched for wealthy life partners in belief that an estate and a lavish lifestyle could provide them with a lifetime’s worth of enjoyment. However, love was not an element of such an accord. Their search for a wealthy partner provided them with the security of money, land and comfort in life. Prosperity meant that the woman and her children would never have to face financial problems or hardships. This significant predicament of marriage for young women is ever present in the novel, Pride and Prejudice. The Bennet girls are at the ripe age for marriage and struggle to find affluent suitors. Throughout the novel, Jane Austen reveals that the only marriages that contain pure happiness are the ones that are built on true love, adoration and affection. The other marriages in the novel are considered unhappy and miserable because they are out of either convenience, materialism or physical attraction. Elizabeth and Darcy, along with Jane and Bingley, are the only couples who receive genuine happiness from their marriage. Their marriages are not out of trivial reasons like money or class but out of true admiration and affection for their partners. As a result, contrary
This chapter discusses a combination between marriage and singledom which lead to the modernization of women. This chapter is divided into four sections. The first section will discuss an overview on the literary background of the author, Candace Bushnell and it will be followed by the second section which will discuss the previous studies on the text. The third section will discuss an overview of the conceptual framework of marriage and singledom. And finally, the fourth section will discuss the previous studies on marriage and singledom.
The analysis can be discussed in relation to Andrew Sean Greer’s text “The story of a Marriage”.