Marrying Absurd Joan Didion Analysis

The Wife Of His Youth is a short story written by Charles Chesnutt in the late 1800’s. The story starts with the introduction to the Blue Veins society; A society where a small group of colored people formed up in the Northern City after the Civil War. Blue Veins society distinguished a person’s social standing but basically geared only toward those of light complexion where you could visibly see one’s Blue Veins. Mr. Ryder a handsome bachelor, and dean of the Blue Veins society is soon to end his bachelor status and marry Miss. Molly Dixon. That was soon to change when he is approached by a face of his past, the wife of his youth. Mr. Ryder a past apprentice during the Civil War was previously married to Liza Jane. Liza Jane spent 25 years in search of her love Sam Taylor or known now as Mr. Ryder. Late into the story Mr. Ryder throws a ball for the Blue Veins society in honor of Molly Dixon his “soon to be” wife. During the Blue Veins ball, Mr. Ryder reaches out to the crowd with hypothetical question about the wife of his youth; in regards to advice on what he should do. Mr.Ryder brings Liza Jane to the ball and introduces everyone in the crowd as the wife of his youth. This short story really makes one question the certain aspects of race.

In the classic story “The Wife of His Youth” by Charles W. Chesnutt, the main character Mr. Ryder encounters a woman from his past who brings him a dilemma. His new life in the Blue Vein society ignores his past life as a slave, and Ryder’s visitor Liza Jane seeks her former slave husband who it turns out in the end is Ryder himself. Ryder at first denies his former identity as her husband, and she does not recognize him. The plot twist at the end consists of Ryder making a very public announcement, introducing Liza Jane to his peers as “The Wife of His Youth.” Although the announcement is surprising and seems at first sincere, in reality it is not. The acknowledgement is entirely ironic because Ryder's wife, Liza Jane, will not fit in his society, and he uses the announcement to promote himself even further in the eyes of his peers, instead for being morally responsible.

In “The Wife of His Youth,” Mr. Ryder acknowledges the promise of marriage as a transaction between two people of equal or better strata of wealth. In this case, his desire to marry is relative to his affinity for ostentatious celebrations of wealth, unconcerned with troubles of the heart, and laced with colorist undertones that disrupts the road he paved towards social advancement. Upon introduction as “dean of the Blue Veins,” Mr. Ryder identifies with the upper echelon of noncolored activists that “maintain correct social standards” for people of color; a juxtaposing role for a racially passing male in a post-Civil War era (Chestnutt 1). Nevertheless, Mr. Ryder’s perspectives on marriage remain superficial whilst engaging in courtship as

Joan Didion, the author of “Marrying Absurd”, characterizes the Las Vegas wedding scene as a place “which is set by mobsters and call girls”. Didion ridicules the wedding industry which has created the unrealistic and untraditional Las Vegas wedding. Didion uses a derogative tone, artistic clues, syntax, irony, and juxtaposition to argue that the expectations of marriages are manufactured to economically stimulate the wedding industry while leaving insensible newlyweds.

In Joan Didion’s “Good-Bye to All That”, Didion wrote about a woman’s process of pursuing her dream which was living in New York. Throughout the passage, Didion used many rhetorical devices to establish the storyline, which enhanced the reader’s understanding of the situations. She used many metaphors to represent the reality of the character’s life and what she had hope for. She had also foreshadowed some of the objects in the story that represented something bigger.

According to Peter Grevious, the American Revolution was caused by the requirement to obey a supreme authority that sent the colonists into total neglect. As the wife of the Old Nobleman who the settlers were under the arm of, “she was an omnipotent Goddess and ought to be worshipped as such, that it was the height of impudence and disobedience in the new settlers to dispute her authority,” (7). The settlers pledged agreements with the Old Nobleman through The Great Paper, obeying the regulations set. The wife then has an unlimited amount of authority over the settlers, making her utterly supreme. With her power, the wife observed “that the new settlers were very fond of a particular kind of cider… she published another edict obliging them

Joan Didion’s Play it as it lays describes the life of one Maria Wyeth, small time actress and ex-wife of Carter, a mildly successful film maker in Hollywood. The book follows her decline and retreat from the company she used to keep and her quest to find meaning within the absurdity and cruelty that is life. Within the book there’s a great deal of Maria’s inner thoughts that we are exposed to within Didion’s close third person narrative. However, one way to see the characters in Play it as it Lays is to look through the characters perceptions of each other, notably in the case of her ex-husband Carter. By looking at how Carter is treated by and treats Maria we can have insight into Both of them as characters.

“The Wife of His Youth” is a short story by Charles Chesnutt about a bourgeoisie man named Mr. Ryder who is in a dilemma when the wife of his past shows up a day before he proposes to his lover, Mrs. Molly Dixon. Originally Sam Taylor, an apprentice on a plantation, Mr. Ryder runs away and settles in a light-colored community Groveland where he becomes a bourgeoisie. In Groveland, Ryder joins a colored organization Blue Veins where he further advances himself in society and becomes the dean of the organization. The “Blue Veins Society” is created to “establish and maintain correct social standards among a people whose social condition presented almost unlimited room for improvement” (Chesnutt 624). As Ryder prepares for the ball and his proposal to Molly, ‘Liza Jane appears in his life and causes him to thwart his proposal. Instead of proposing to Molly, he presents to his guests, ‘Liza Jane, the wife of his youth. Chesnutt’s “The Wife of His Youth” addresses race and Chesnutt’s view on race, societal standards, language, and the significance of ‘Liza Jane’s appearance with racial identity and the color line.

The concert that I attended was ‘The Chamber Music of Joan Tower’ which occurred on November 10, 2016. It began at 12:30pm and occurred at the San Jose State University Music Concert Hall. The performers in question ranged from music students to professors.

Updike’s description of Joan’s, the mother, behavior as all of her kids are finally home, makes the reader sympathize with Richard, the father. One example is, “Joan came and went, in and out of the house, calmer than she should have been, praising his struggles with the lock as if this were one more and not the last of their chain of shared chores” (723). It is clear that Joan, characteristically more outspoken the Richard. When the two of them get into a disagreement, Joan is portrayed as more vocal and straight forward which causes readers to want to support Richard as he begins to wrap up his life at their home. Another example of Joan’s bluntness is during Richard and her conversation about how and when to tell the children about their

In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City the painting “Joan of Arc” by Jules Bastien-Lepage hangs in the B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Gallery. This Piece is rather large and was done with oil paint on canvas, its dimensions being approximately eight feet tall with a width of ten feet. When walking toward Bastien-Lapage’s painting, it’s size and realism grabs one’s attention, and then holds it while this scene of Joan of Arc seems to take place right before one’s eyes.

Analyse how a relationship was destructive or supportive within a visual text, for a particular purpose.

Looking first at the Woman of Willendorf, the figure’s reproductive areas are the most prominent part of the work altogether. She is purposely made to look heavyset; 1 her arms resting on her largely proportioned breast emphasize that she “may not represent the idea of women at all, but rather the notion of reproduction or as some have argued, the fertile natural world itself” (Davies et al.

Known by many different names, including Arnolfini Double Portrait and The Arnolfini Marriage, The Arnolfini Portrait was painted by Jan van Eyck (Figure 1). Van Eyck is known for several pieces, most notably the Ghent Altarpiece. The portrait is an eighty-two by sixty centimetres oil paint on oak panel painting. Though it is not what year van Eyck began this painting, it is dated as complete in 1434.

Webster has depicted an antithetical approach to marriage within his Senecan play, The Duchess of Malfi. The play was written in the Jacobean era which, at the time, was a patriarchal society and so by creating a dominant female protagonist, who did just about whatever she pleased Webster has managed to incorporate a semantic field of death and pain to fit alongside his juxtapositions of a typical Jacobean marriage.