Essay about The Girls in Their Summer Dresses

Perfect: adj. \ˈpər-fikt\ 1. Entirely without any flaws, defects, or shortcomings, is the first definition you find on dictionary.com for the word (perfect). Is this actually possible to attain? Has anyone actually ever been perfect? Or is it all in the eye of the beholder? These questions are asked by almost every girl, as we dream to one day reach the unattainable. This is especially true at the tender age of fifteen, where nothing seems to be going right with our bodies and everything is changing in us. This poem stresses the fact that as everyone realizes how unrealistic this dream is, the knowledge makes no difference to the wish. Marisa de los Santos comments on this in her poem “Perfect Dress”. The use of verbose imagery,

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 story that reflects the subordination of woman in marriage. By the time of the early

The interior narration here allows the focus to hold a contemplative and introspective view of Michaels thought patterns. He remembers his dreams and notes them as being irrational and beyond all reason of reality, yet he finds himself yearning for her

Although they divorced it may have had its positive sides to Michael’s developments as he may have learnt to not rush into such a serious relationship and also to be completely sure that the person he decides to marry is really the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with.

Frequently, married couples value the stability of their relationship over the true pillars of marriage; trust, connection, compatibility, and most importantly, love. This leads to a desperate attempt to grow love in the relationship, which often fails. Such is the case in the short story, “The Other Paris,” by Mavis Gallant. Here, Gallant portrays her disagreement with this idea of love through her mocking tone and sarcastic characterization of Carol and Howard Mitchell.

 Furthermore Michael does nothing when Frances is crying face down into her handkerchief. "Michael didn't say anything. He sat watching the bartender slowly peel a lemon."(Shaw 8) This shows that Michael does not care about Frances' feelings. It looks as though for Michael the relationship is based on physical appearance because even after a long discussion at the bar when Frances got up from the table, "Michael watched her walk, thinking, what a pretty girl, what nice legs."(Shaw 9) If Michael really loves Frances he should try to see her inner feelings instead of her physical appearance.

Unfortunately, the connection that Gabriel feels to his wife is the product of illusion. In reality, he doesn’t know her at all—a fact Joyce alludes to when Gabriel fails to recognize his own wife and sees only, “[a] woman standing near the top of the stairs…” (2192). When Gretta begins to reminisce about a boy from her past, Gabriel’s blanket of illusion is snatched away: “While he had been full of…joy and desire, she had been comparing him in her mind with another” (2197). Facing the reality of his wife’s love for another man, Gabriel now begins to question their entire relationship.

In the movie “ why did I get married” it opens by showing all the couples and their problems that they are going through. These couple are all successful and friends with each other. The group of friends once a year plan a trip out to a random location to get away and spend time with their significate other. The point of the trip was not only to hangout with their friends but also for the couples to get to know each other more and remember why they got married from the beginning. As the group all worked on their relationship, a couple did not want nothing to do with each other except that what mike wanted. Mike was an ass to shiela that critized her about being obbesed and ugly she was. Shiela ignored all the rud comments that was given to her by mike her husband because she believed that if he see her how hard she trying to save their marriage he might want to give it a chance to be happy. Mike and shiela did not end up working out because they ignored the five stages which are initiating, experimenting, intensifying, intergrading, and boding. These five stages could of save and fix relationshipos if both parties are willing to try.

The discussion of the Wife’s five husbands describes her evolving role as a woman and how she overcame the most ridiculous obstacles to maintain this idea or illusion of marriage. The Wife’s depiction of her marriages was that three were good and two were bad. The initial marriages were to older rich men where she kept up this idea of marriage in order to receive money, but was not faithful by

Thesis: In the short story, “A Couple of Hamburger’s”, their ongoing disagreements seem that of a couple who has been married for a long time when everything your significant other does bother you, whereas, in “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses” the problem seems much bigger because the husband admits to ogling at other women.

Frances doesn't agree with Michael that its natural for him to look at other women. When she catches him looking at the first woman, she says "She's not so pretty anyway,...Not pretty enough to take a chance breaking your neck looking at her." She thinks the reason that he is looking at the girl is because she's pretty, but he disagrees, saying "...She has a nice complexion. Country girl complexion." Her logic is, that she sees herself as just as pretty as any other girl. So why would her husband want to look at other women? But Michael's point of view is that he can't help but look at these women. That

Alice’s alcohol dependency has impacted her family greatly. Michael feels inadequate because he can’t fix his family’s problems. He believes that all problems are fixable and since he is the man in house, it is his job to protect his family and fix his wife. Fixing is what drives this family. It shows the dysfunction in the family when they look away and avoid conflict rather than dealing with it head-on. Generally Michael is doing the fixing and believes that by “fixing” the problems they can move on like nothing

The theme of the two stories revolves around the feminist issue of marriage. A common notion between the two short stories is that love is a failure and a mere comic when there is the failure to recognize the beloved as a person and not a mere convenience. The stories also deal with the 18th and the 19th century American life?declining in their spiritual and emotional lives.

In “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses” speech and action characterize Frances as a woman who refuses to acknowledge her husband’s lack of commitment and their deteriorating relationship. Frances blatantly tries to cover up the problems in her relationship with positivity. After Frances catches her husband looking at other women she changes the subject “her tone a good imitation of the tone she had used at breakfast and at the beginning of their walk” (Shaw 59). Frances has an opportunity to discuss important issues in their marriage, but instead puts on a false, cheery façade. Frances’s attitude is conveyed again when she talks to her husband after he admits that