The End of the Affair

What is social expectation and how does it affects one’s life? In the short stories – “A Pair of Silk Stockings”, “A Shameful Affair”, and “The Story of Hour” – by Kate Chopin from the novel The Awakening and Selected Stories of Kate Chopin, they uncover the expected roles and responsibilities of women in the early 1900s. Through imagery and diction, Chopin reveals that people tend to fall into others’ expectations upon their marriage and even before it, which leads to lose their personal freedom and gain desires in conflict with social expectations.

In the poem, “I Wish I Were Her Laundryman,” the speaker discusses his desires to “touch those finespun things lying closest the body I love,” disturbingly suggesting that he wants to touch and hold the clothing that belong to his crush. This behavior is obsessive in the way he describes the clothing as the “finespun things lying closest the body I love,” hinting that the speaker is possessive of the girl he loves. The poem continues in a similarly creepy way when the speaker says that he’d “dry [his] own flesh with the towels she yesterday held to her face,” indicating that he takes pleasure in touching the same things that she touched, no matter how long ago. The speaker’s behavior shows that at least one of the people in Deir el-Medina had been obsessive and creepy when it came to matters concerning the girl he loved. Likewise, in the poem, “The House of My Beloved,” the speaker uses the phrase “I would make like a child in the face of her anger,” referring to how he accepts his sweetheart’s anger towards him, as long as she is acknowledging his existence. The image that comes to mind when reading the poem is a woman angrily yelling at a man while he stands there and smiles, oblivious to his lover’s anger. Any attention from her, even negative attention, is better than her being unaware of his presence. This behavior shows the speaker’s obsessiveness

The passion of desire and love for another may subject itself to change, as do the malleable

As Oekeke awoke, he shifted in his bed with a pain coming from his chest. It wasn’t a pain that made you clench up and scream, he knew from that moment something was very wrong. He tried to open his at last, from when he awoke his eyes were still weary but it seemed as though he was stuck in time. His heart pumped faster and his mind was propelling from left to right to across the back and back. All he could think of was his family, but with such confusion he could hardly focus on the realty of his situation. It was a sensation he’d never felt ever before, and as he saw his life flash by him he knew the only thing he could do was to wait it out. The old man finally grasped control of his life covered in sweat and disorientation. He asked

In her short story “Happy Endings”, Margaret Atwood uses different literary techniques that can alter the interpretation of the story’s theme. The story starts off with a generic “fairy tale” ending in which a husband and a wife live a happy life together and eventually die. However, as the story progresses, Atwood’s style and tone makes the alternate scenarios of John and Mary give off a sense of uncertainty of what main ideas she is trying to convey. Good opening and thesis.

The Scarlet Letter and the Monica Lewinsky Scandal are stories about mistakes and their repercussions. In both stories, we focus on women having an affair with a man and the backlash that is received for doing so, but we also are asked whether the punishment they receive is necessary. The women are destroyed by what transpires and so, and so we must find a solution to these problems.

Julie resents being in the asylum and feels that the staff “don’t know how to deal with drug users” (p. 32). For this reason, she looks to Lewis and the making of Cosi Fan Tutte for peace of mind. In reference to the play, Julie says, “I like it because I’m doing something. Using up energy. Getting out of my ward. God, how I hate that ward” (p. 36). The asylum is perceived to be prison by all the patients; one which, like Julie, they all wish to escape using different means. Julie escapes the asylum through busying herself with Cosi Fan Tutte as well as Lewis, a temporary love interest. The latter is evident in Julie and Lewis’ articulate discussions and “passionate” kiss (p. 68). Julie discusses her usage of drugs which can also be viewed as a form of escapism on her behalf. She says that “drugs make [her] feel sort of living” and compares “junk” to love, saying that “Some people can’t imagine life without love” while she “can’t imagine life without junk” (p. 37). Julie does not seem to care that drugs are not an accepted means to feeling alive – she recalls the shrink calling them a ‘crutch’ while she calls them a ‘rocket to the stars’ (p. 32). This highlights that Julie has her own perception of reality that is contrary to what is widely held to be true,

Marriage has been a heated controversy for the past few years because people often marry for the wrong reasons. Anyone who thinks of an ideal marriage would think of two people loving each other and sharing a personal bond or goals together. Marriage is regularly defined as the legally or formally recognized union of two lovers as partners in a personal relationship. This definition remarks there is an actual connection between two people in marriage, but do people actually consider this when committing to “love” and “support” their partners forever? As research and studies have shown, people ultimately get married for many reasons, except love. This philosophy can be easily applied to the short poem, “Marriage” by Gregory Corso. In this emotional poem, the author argues marriage is more effectively understood or known for culture and convenience rather than through the abstract considerations of love. Here, we can identify people generally decide to marry for the incorrect reasons, for instance the story of the author himself. Corso finds himself confused multiple times, wondering if he should marry to not be lonely, for tradition and for his physical and mental health. He disregards love, a relationship or a connection with his future wife. General ways of convenience like loneliness, health and economic status between cultural stereotypes and religion are usually the true reasons of why people chose to have the commitment of marriage with another person.

No human being on this earth is entirely without flaw or sin, and so, many people often struggle with how they should deal with these wrongdoings and misdeeds; should one accept what they have done wrong and do everything in their power to atone for it, taking the path of higher morality despite how difficult it may be? Or should one neglect to make amends and simply hide their sins because it is easier not to take responsibility? The way that Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays the characters in his novel, The Scarlet Letter, who take these opposing routes in dealing with their sins, would strongly suggest that he, himself, believes that reconciliation is the best way to go about dealing with situations such as the ones he places his characters in, and the ones that we, as people, face every day in our actual lives.

Ever wondered how love can bring you happiness and pain and make you sane and crazy at the same time. How this emotion can change you and make you accept things you are not used to. How this emotion can overpower you in many ways in which you did not know existed. In Lancelot by Chretien de Troyes, the power of love is a commanding driving force that can dominate a person’s mind, body, and soul and one who is courageous enough to love sometimes undergoes serious consequences. Consequences that are driven from the power of love that harm and cause hardship to the one who is determined to seek love.

He too, tries to keep distance from Marie by disappearing to Mexico on a trip in hopes of finding himself (138). But truth be told, it’s an excuse to escape his own mental love affair of Marie, in which he would fantasize about their nonexistent relationship (168). She was married to Frank Sataba, claiming to have once been in love with at one point, began to grow tired of him due to the reason in which “he wanted her to feel that life was as ugly and as unjust as he felt it” (147). Demonstrating a one-way love where she was the only one loving therefore, the relationship is never considered agapic; causing her to push away from him and pull in closer to Emil as she indulges herself in a affair with him. However, it wasn’t anything sexual but moreso emotional, it’s not that one could see, “it was something one felt in the air” (168). However, when both of them actually expresses themselves to one another in a sensual manner, under the Mulberry tree, Frank “fired three times without stopping”, killing them (145). Indicating that even when Marie and Emil tried their best to stay away from each other in respect of the Sataba marriage, keeping their morals by distancing themselves from one another, it isn't worth it. This is because when the moment came, they weren't able to express

Through various acts of betrayal, Winston Smith, deals with his final act of betrayal, which is to himself. Big Brother encourages the Oceanians to betray one another, destroying trust, and ensuring that any act of disobedience towards Big Brother will be dealt with. O'Brien’s character demonstrates to the readers that you can never trust anyone. The betrayals of Julia and Winston are evidence that in the world of 1984, no amount of emotion to something or someone can ever succeed in overcoming Big Brothers

It not only threatens, but also breaks through. Betrayed by love once in her life, she nevertheless seeks it in the effort to fill the lonely void; thus, her promiscuity. But to adhere to her tradition and her sense of herself as a lady, she cannot face this sensual part of herself. She associates it with the animalism of Stanley's lovemaking and terms it “brutal desire”. She feels guilt and a sense of sin when she does surrender to it, and yet she does, out of intense loneliness. By viewing sensuality as brutal desire she is able to disassociate it from what she feels is her true self, but only at the price of an intense inner conflict. Since she cannot integrate these conflicting elements of desire and gentility, she tries to reject the one, desire, and live solely by the other. Desperately seeking a haven she looks increasingly to fantasy. Taking refuge in tinsel, fine clothes, and rhinestones, and the illusion that a beau is available whenever she wants him, she seeks tenderness and beauty in a world of her own making.

Carol Anne Duffy presents love and romance in a unique way that differentiates valentine from any other love poem. Throughout this poem carol expresses love though the original metaphor of an onion. This essay analyses how she does this so effectively and how she presents a range of ideas about love and romance.

Love and Marriage in News of the Engagement, The Unexpected, and Twenty-Six Men and a Girl