Marriage

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In this story we see a woman who has been drained from happiness. She basically goes through life as a routine. She is the example of a woman who stays in an unhappy marriage because it is the right thing to do. “Life, life is an open sea; she sought to explain in sorrow, and to survive women cling to the floating debris on the side,(Boyle). She lives as though she has been condemned to live in this way and there is no way out. For many women in a loveless marriage, this is the case.

Through her interaction with the plumber we see that due to the lack of love and interaction with her husband she is easily intrigued by this man. During the time of this story it was not common for women to have affairs, and we see this in the way she tries to keep herself composed. It is also easily seen however, that in a more current time a situation like this can lead to infidelity and ultimately divorce, showing how time has changed the perception of women having no way out of a loveless marriage.

In Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood she give us many scenarios in which love and marriage can end up. She talks about how love is never a guarantee and neither is marriage. Also about the perfect marriage and how it is usually a cover up, nothing is really ever perfect. The point which she keeps making clear in all scenarios is one, “Eventually they die. This is the end of the story,(Atwood).

In this story we have many characters all intertwined with each other through love and marriage and how one simple thing can change the total outcome of a situation. We’re presented with the tragic and common outcomes of love and the uncertainty of it all. We are lead to believe that love and marriage always ends up in a happy ending, but through this story we are made aware of the reality, “Don’t be deluded by any other endings, they are all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality,(Atwood).

I enjoyed writing about this subject because of the diverse opinions and stigma surrounding it. In reading and analyzing these stories it is very clear that everyone has different experiences to credit for their belief or lack thereof in marriage. In media and everyday life we are surrounded by all the different views that further influence us in a positive or negative way, but I believe it is personal experience that makes all the difference.

I have been fortunate enough to grow up in a home where my parents were married at seventeen and nineteen, they have five kids, and this year are celebrating forty five years of marriage. I have seen how divorce, infidelity, and being in an unhappy marriage can affect the views of those around in a negative way, the way that my parent’s devotion to themselves and their family has influenced me in a positive way. Though I believe nothing in life is guaranteed, I do believe that the success or failure of our relationships and marriages is an individual effort brought on by the values and experiences we are brought up seeing and believing. These stories are a perfect example of how life molds us as we go along.

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