Love And Love In Yiyun Li's Story 'Extra'

However, there is another person who gets punished, Doctor Tang, Mr. Hsu’s teacher. Dr. Tang is the host teacher of the private school, and lives with all his students, taking charge in the supervision of his pupils. During the tribunal, Judge Dee told Doctor Tang, “You, a man of wide learning and many years experience, have failed miserably in your duties as a tutor. The crime of adultery took place in your house, and, as it were, under your very eyes…….you are strictly forbidden ever again to engage in the teaching of students.” [4]The Judge then proclaims to Mrs. Bee(though does not in fact punish her), “You failed in your duty of supervising the conduct of your daughter-in-law, and consequently two heinous crimes were committed in your house.”[5] This relates again to the Confucian theory of right relationships. The elderly should play his/her role as an older person in the Chinese society, or else the society will go without order, and though Mrs. Bee doesn’t get punishment, the words Judge Dee says clearly portray interpersonal relationships in Chinese society.

“She had never said it was love. Neither had he. They were shy. They had been unsure. Now, there would be no time for love. It was in the moment of parting that she knew she loved him” (21).

Ever since the beginning of time, love has played an enormous role among humans. Everyone feels a need to love and to be loved. Some attempt to fill this yearning with activities and possessions that will not satisfy – with activities in which they should not participate and possessions they should not own. In Andrew Marvell’s poem, “To His Coy Mistress,” the speaker encounters an emotion some would call love but fits better under the designation of lust for a woman. In contrast, the speaker of Robert Herrick’s poem, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,” urges virgins to marry, to make a lasting commitment in which love plays a

     In contrast to these fairly pessimistic views on love, the author describes an instance in which a couple found true love. Mel tells an anecdote of an old couple that was admitted to the emergency room after a very bad car accident. The two people were wrapped up in full body casts, and as a result they could not see each other. Mel noticed that the old man was very sad, even

The Human Condition is a big part of our understanding of literature, it can mean death, acceptance, judgment, and several other diverse things. It is about the positive or negative aspects of humans that everyone all universally deals with at least one time in one’s life. In the novel “The Great Gatsby”, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the short stories Raymond Carver’s “Everything Stuck to Him”, and Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”, all have the most prominent human condition: love. Love is portrayed as society’s primary concern in literature, and is represented as a main concern in today’s society .

In the three stories “Eveline”, “A Rose for Emily”, and “Desiree’s Baby” three single women go about love in three different ways. Their struggles for love are similar; the decisions they made you will not believe. One thing you can say about all the women is their poor love lives. With their fathers in their way, the women find it hard to find love. Love is a four letter word that everyone wants, but some never get to experience the happiness. While Eveline, Miss Emily, and Desiree have controlling fathers, they want love; one walked away from her happiness, one kills for it, and another kills herself.

Women are taught from a young age that marriage is the end all be all in happiness, in the short story “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin and the drama “Poof!” by Lynn Nottage, we learn that it is not always the case. Mrs. Mallard from “The Story of an Hour” and Loureen from “Poof!” are different characteristically, story-wise, and time-wise, but share a similar plight. Two women tied down to men whom they no longer love and a life they no longer feel is theirs. Unlike widows in happy marriages Loureen and Mrs., Mallard discover newfound freedom in their respective husband’s deaths. Both stories explore stereotypical housewives who serve their husbands with un-stereotypical reactions to their husband’s deaths.

Love is different for each and every person. For some, it comes easy and happens early in life. For others, such as Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, it happened much later in life after two unsuccessful marriages. Janie’s grandmother, Nanny raised Janie to be attracted to financial security and physical protection instead of seeking love. Nanny continually emphasized that love was something that was bound to happen after those needs were met; even though Nanny never married. Janie formulates her ideal of love while sitting under a pear tree as a teenager; one that fulfilled her intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and physically. She was then informed that she was to have an arranged marriage to an older

We live in a society that has increasingly stomped on love, depicting it as cruel, superficial and full of complications. Nowadays it is easy for people to claim that they are in love, even when their actions say otherwise, and it is just as easy to claim that they are not when they really are. Real love is difficult to find and keeping it alive is even harder, especially when one must overcome their own anxieties and uncertainties. This is the main theme present in Russell Banks’ short story “Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story,” as well as in “The Fireman’s Wife,” written by Richard Bausch. These narratives, although similar in some aspects, are completely different types of love stories.

Love makes us do crazy things. It makes us become people we never thought we were. Love gives us an ultimatum about our life. Love is a powerful bond and wicked curse. When we love, we love hard. We will do anything for love and to be loved. In “My Sister’s Marriage,” Cynthia Marshall Rich presents the different views of love upon similar yet different characters. Two sisters, who share a loving yet manipulative Father show the different ways love affects us. Sarah-Ann and Olive have many similar and different relationships with love, their dreams, and their traits.

The stark divide between love and marriage shown right the way through cannot be comprehended fully by the twenty-first century reader: in today’s society marriage and love are mutually exclusive - you very rarely get one

Bao uses the motif of love to portray Kien’s idea of love and associates it with characteristics of innocence, and stability within his relationship. Bao uses literary diction to strongly emphasize the word "innocence" as a way to distance

‘Alzheimer’s’, a daughter-in-law tells her at their wedding dinner.” This proves that Old Tang suffers from Alzheimer’s, a mental disorder that affects the mind by prohibiting basic communication as well as stripping away personality and memories. When Yiyun Li chose to have Old Tang lose his ability to communicate, she shows how isolation can occur through being unable to form human relationships. Old Tang can no longer show love, he can no longer give praise, he can no longer work or contribute to society, and so he is an extra to the people around him. He has become isolated to the general population. Another way in which Old Tang displays the importance of the title as it links to the central theme in the story is in a more literal manner of the term isolation. Old Tang has been physically isolated from his family, shunned to live alone with a women whom he does not acknowledge as his wife while his rich sons simply pay enough for him to survive. Old Tang’s family care only enough to visit once a week, due to his children’s sense of self-importance. Old Tang is physically isolated from his family, but he is also emotionally

In T. Coraghessan Boyle’s story “The Love of My Life,” it centers around the teenage relationship of Jeremy and China who claim to be in love with each other.  Their relationship; however, is centered around what a relationship is like in movies and based off of physical attraction to each other as well as being naive to what real love is.  The relationship between the two is great until they encounter their first real obstacle in the relationship when China becomes pregnant.  The egocentric nature of both characters takes over and there begins to be cracks within the relationship. Now they face the reality of becoming parents and they blame each other for the mistake instead of accepting their role in the situation.  The love between the two

In Mr. DungKai-Cheung’s story “The Young Shen Nong”, not only do the two characters Shen Nong and Lei portray us a fantastic story with a whole series of adventures, but also a romantic and exotic love story that may confuse the readers whether what real love is. In this essay, I attempt to discuss the loving relationships and how they are portrayed in the story by the structure of the text.