Fear Of Commitment In Marina Keegan's 'Cold Pastoral'

At the beginning of Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of an Hour” the young, yet physically frail protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, is tactfully informed of her husband’s recent demise. Immediately after receiving the grim news, she makes it perfectly clear how she feels about the circumstances. Mrs. Mallard “…wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms” and subsequently isolated herself inside of the privacy of her bedroom. Reflecting on the events alone, she displays a welling of despair; however Mrs. Mallard notices that, unlike her husband, the world outside of her bedroom window appears vivid and alive. When cogitating about her external observations, and dissolving her finite trepidation, Mrs. Mallard comes an epiphany:

The case of Mary Morstan is presented to start on a ‘September evening’. This particular choice of month brings the reader into the cold,foggy and often miserable atmosphere of September. The atmosphere is highlighted by the sentence ‘the day had been a dreary one,and a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the great city.’

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.

Even before Joe’s death, Janie “was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew not how to mix them.”(75) Joe’s influences controlled Janie to the point where she lost her independence and hope. She no longer knew how to adapt to the change brought upon her. When she finally settles and begins to gain back that independence, the outward existence of society came back into play. “Uh woman by herself is uh pitiful thing. Dey needs aid and assistance.”(90) Except this time Janie acted upon her own judgment and fell for someone out of the ordinary. Tea Cake was a refreshing change for Janie, despite the society’s disapproval. “Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”(128) This was what she had always dreamt of. When she was with Tea Cake, she no longer questioned inwardly, she simply rejected society’s opinions and acted upon her own desires.

This personal confession shows that Mrs. Mallard, though she will mourn at first, now is free to “live for herself,” (228) not for her imposing husband. Before her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard believed she was in a healthy, normal marriage. This death revealed to her how while she cared about her husband, she despised the lack of freedom her marriage had given her. All of the realizations that Mrs. Mallard reaches during her time of reflection shows the readers exactly why she will no longer mourn the death of her husband.

(P1) In Aria Beth Sloss’ short story, “North, the narrative is told from the perspective of a child as he/she talks about his/her parents. The narrator opens the piece by telling the reader that his/her father, Thomas, was an explorer who left for an expedition and “was never heard from again” (Sloss 2). The narrative then continues into a description of the relationship between the father and mother. The mother, Mary, was considered a “wild woman” (Sloss 5) growing up. Her family had concerns that she was unsuitable for any man. Upon meeting each other, the narrator’s mother and father found common ground in that they both loved adventure and had “a habit of disappearing” (Sloss 5). As the story progresses into the couple’s married life, the father is described to be a man “in love” (Sloss 7) with the wilderness like a “schoolboy” (Sloss 7). He cannot be home from expeditions long without getting restless.  As days pass, the father spends his time planning his next adventure, a hot air balloon ride to the Arctic, something that he claims will “write his name beside Darwin’s in the history books” (Sloss 13). The father does not tell Mary of his plans and she does not tell him of the loneliness that has struck her “sudden as a storm” (Sloss 13) from his lack of presence. One day though, Mary and Thomas have sex and Mary feels as though “something dangerous is running through her” (Sloss 21). Days later, she learns she is pregnant, but does not get to tell her husband as he

Mark Strand’s poem, “Poor North” depicts the life of a married couple facing countless struggles during a harsh winter. It tells of a man working in an unsuccessful store while his wife sits at home, wishing for her old life back. The way the wife copes with her sadness is both intriguing and perplexing. She misses her old life, even though it is described to have not been special; however, the wife may be a person who never feels satisfied or fulfilled by the external world due to internal conflict. Despite the wife’s obvious misery, she stays by her husband’s side and they stroll in the cold together, bracing the wind. As a means of escape from life, she peers into her past in order to find hope in the present.

Helen was left lonely without Cal. She never thought of staying in her life without Cal. She always acts like she has forgotten Cal but actually with every breath, Helen takes, she remembers Cal. On the other hand, after her husband's death Helen became really protective in terms of her children, the way they act. “The outside was an ugly truth that Helen plane to keep to herself”(Moore 14). In this quote writer tells the way Helen started to change, because of her, she children she started to pretend like there is no outside, it's just an ugly truth which she didn't want to talk about. She pretended very well to be inside with them by making breakfast, helping them in the homework, involving them in other activities. In short, she took care of a mother and father. She wanted her family to stay together and united with each other, they used to eat food together, and no one was allowed to eat it without one another. In the beginning she was looking after her daughter’s behaviour, “she had flicked her slipper at them when they were rude” (Moore 141). While Helen was trying to take care of her children, she was involved in a depression. She started working in a bar and was kicked out because she wasn't working properly, customers were being mad at her. She left the job in the bar but the main point was that she couldn’t survive by not paying bills, eating buns just because they didn’t have any source of income. “Lulu

In the short story, “The Story of an Hour,” author Kate Chopin presents the character of Mrs. Louis Mallard. She is an unhappy woman trapped in her discontented marriage. Unable to assert herself or extricate herself from the relationship, she endures it. The news of the presumed death of her husband comes as a great relief to her, and for a brief moment she experiences the joys of a liberated life from the repressed relationship with her husband. The relief, however, is short lived. The shock of seeing him alive is too much for her bear and she dies. The meaning of life and death take on opposite meaning for Mrs. Mallard in her marriage because she lacked the courage to stand up for herself.

The grief comes from lost love must be recovered by love. In crow lake, the author Mary Lawson portrays a young successful scholar, 26-year-old Kate Morrison, always is bothered by her anguished past. The innermost struggle not only leads she can’t directly face the problem existing between her and her older brother Matt for years but also becomes an obstacle of the further relationship with Daniel, the men she loves. But all the problems are concealed elaborately before the invitation letter received. While the peaceful life is broken by the invitation coming from Matt’s son, her nephew Simon, Kate suddenly has to face all the problems she doesn’t want to face

(Forster 181). As a sister looking out for what’s best, I understand that this announcement of his proposal may come as a shock and Helen suggests he does not really truly love her. Helen fears that Margaret will start to be like Mrs. Wilcox and become “gruffer, more downright, and inclined to patronize the more foolish virgin” (Forster 160). Here, we see the true feelings of Helen as she becomes disconnected with her sister and feels anger towards her sister’s fiancé, Henry. Helen punishes her sister by disconnecting herself from Margaret’s life and moving far away; out of sight, out of mind. Unsatisfied with the way things were left after telling Helen about the engagement and their continuous arguments on the subject, Margaret asks to meet up at Howard’s End where they start reminiscing about all the strong family bonding experiences they had years ago. By talking and laughing about the good old days, the sisters were able to reunite and rebuild that family connection they had lost. It is evident in this realistic example between to loving sisters’ causes family bonds and connections to forever remain. Although they may be damaged due to disagreements, these close relationships can never be broke. John Colmer mentions in his critique, “Marriage and Personal Relationships in Forster’s Fiction, that, “Personal relationships triumph between the two Schelgel sisters,

In Jean Rhys’ novel “Good Morning Midnight” the reader is introduced to Sasha Jansen. Sasha is a run of the mill alcoholic who has seemingly been handed the most dreadful hand in life. Her husband deserted her, her child died, she is poor, and mostly—she is isolated and alone. Her viewpoints on the world, and herself, are very cynical and pessimistic. Sasha’s story details her downfall in a stream of consciousness narrative that takes the reader from one thing to the next and back again. It tells of the things she has sensed which leads to the inevitable end of hopelessness which causes her to suffer severe disconnection from the world around her. The problem is, absolute hopelessness is the best thing that Sasha could find for herself.

       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

Marie, Meursault’s girlfriend, is extremely emotionally attached to Meursault, and this is a weakness. Marie is dependent on Meursault as her source of happiness, even though Meursault does not show that he really cares about Marie. When asked if he loved her, he replied “it didn’t mean anything and that [he] probably didn’t love her” (41). Most people would despise being in a relationship in which they’re unloved by their partner. However, Marie stays with Meursault, even if he does not actually love her. Marie staying in a relationship where she is not even loved, is the result of her being emotionally attached to someone who does not feel the same way about her.

The short story heavily revolves around the protagonist woman Mary and her depressed son. The two are driving home from the hospital and the tension between them is very high. The reader is told that Mary and her husband Seamus was married for 20 years before conceiving David which resulted in the two being older parents and even more importantly not expected to become parents. Mary can’t comprehend what has made David so depressed though she realises that she may could have been there for him more often when he was growing up. The primary themes in the story is depression and the journey from life to death, furthermore motherly love and family dynamic plays an important role in the story “She smiled at the idea that now she would have two of them for company” (P.3, L. 84). The story is narrated by a third person omniscient narrator, this is evident by the narrator knowing the different character’s thoughts and furthermore the story begins with in media res “Mammy, how do people die?” he had asked, and Mary explained