What message do you think these authors are giving about
romantic relationships and friendships? What in the stories helps you
support that this is the message they are communicating?
After completing this week’s
stories, I think the message that the authors are trying to communicate is that
you can't force love when it is not there.
In “The Sun, The Moon, The Stars,”
by Junot Diaz, we are presented with Yunior, a young man that claims to be in
love with his girlfriend, Magda, but when they hit a rough patch, he looks for
comfort in another woman, and then is surprised when Magda realizes she can’t
forgive like she thought she would be able to.
On page 5, Yunior himself says, “You couldn’t think of anybody worse to
screw than Magda.” Yet there he is, a man with a perfect woman, taking
advantage of the fact that she is such a forgiving soul. When you love someone
and things hit rocky waters, you don’t sleep with someone else and use it as an
excuse, that doesn’t solve everything, it only makes it worse. He DEEPLY
embarrassed her. The other woman, Cassandra, wrote her a goddamn letter, her
family knew, her friends knew, and none of them were going to let her easily
forget it. On page 6, he says, “Magda
starting turning into another Magda.” Well what did you expect, Yunior? You weren’t
exactly the man that she thought loved her anymore. She knew she couldn’t trust
you, and in situations like that, I believe it gets harder over time, not
easier, and he just wanted her to forgive and forget.
In “How,” by Lorrie Moore, I was
reminded slightly of the wife in “The Story of an Hour.” In the beginning, we
are given a picture of a couple that’s beginning to fall in love, beginning to
form the “perfect relationship.” By now we should all know that the perfect
relationship simply does not exist. After moving in together, the cracks in the
relationship begin to show more and more. After they attend a wedding together,
we are informed that she doesn’t want to marry, and he wants a family. As she
gets more and more restless in the relationship, she begins to develop a
wandering eye, and eventually cheats on her boyfriend with an actor she meets
god knows where. This affair is carried on for what we can only guess is an
extended period of time, and then she finally finds the courage to leave her
unhappy relationship, her boyfriend gets sick. It is my belief that you
shouldn’t stay in an unhappy relationship because you feel obligated to. It
only makes things worse. She even starts fantasizing about him dying, and plays
out what she would act like at his funeral as she stood next to his mother and
sisters. It’s disgusting.
Finally, in “Hills Like White
Elephants,” Jig and the American are a young couple that seem to travel a lot,
and one day while waiting for the Madrid bound train, we have the opportunity
to listen in on their conversation about the abortion that the American is
trying to convince Jig to have. Throughout the story, Jig is constantly flip-flopping
on whether or not this is something she wants, yet the American remains sure of
his decision. He even tries to manipulate her into thinking that this is her
decision, even though he is clearly saying that she can’t have both him and the
baby. Jig is under the impression that
if she gets the abortion, he will love her again, and everything will be okay.
This poor girl clearly doesn’t realize that if he loved her, it really would be
her decision to make, and there would be no hidden agenda. It was only at the
end of the story, when Jig says, “there’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine,” that
I have any hope for her.
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