Blame And Guild Of His Failed Marriage example essay topic

Major Essay #3 Analysis of Fiction Societal tradition and stereotyping suggests that in marriage the man will enjoy more power in the relationship than the woman; moreover, that the man will be in control of the relationship and his wife. That in Aleppo Once, by Vladimir Nabokov, within its theme of loss and love, explores this concept. In a letter written during the opening days of WWII, Nabokov uses the character of the narrator to present his ideas of control and power in relationships. Through the narrator's writings Nabokov shows that from the point of view of a man, control is not necessarily a reality in marriage, especially a broken marriage. Nabokov develops his story of loss by introducing denial as a way to ease the pain of a lost relationship. At the beginning of his letter the narrator says", Although I can produce documentary proofs of matrimony, I am positive now that my wife never existed.

You may know her name from some other source, but that does not matter; it is the name of an illusion. Therefore, I am able to speak of her with as much detachment as I would speak of a character in a story (one of your stories, to be precise) " (241). Denial is perhaps our most powerful human emotion. Sometimes denial is what allows us to keep going day to day during times when we are suffering emotionally; sometimes it allows us to escape hurt, self-blame, and the blame of our spouse, as in the case of the narrator. The narrator uses denial as a way to deal with his emotions over the break-up; he does not want to face his feelings over what has happened. After all if he remains detached he will not have to admit that he has failed at what society expects of him: to be a man in control of his marriage, and to keep his wife by his side.

As the narrator continues with his letter Nabokov use of comparison reveals how the narrator perceived the beginning days of his marriage. His marriage begins with a "disastrous honeymoon" taking place amid a time of war. What he sees in the war is what he feels about his marriage beginning with the honeymoon: loss, sadness, and a certain reality. As he and his wife travel about war-torn Europe on their honeymoon he writes of experiencing death, of giving up, and of having no rights.

All of these consequences of war are the actuality of his marriage, and he faces making the choice of going on with his marriage or turning back". I should also not like to forget a certain stretch of highroad and the sight of a family of refugees (two women, a child) whose old father, or grandfather had died on the way... With a stick and their hands the women had tried to dig a roadside grave, but the soil was too hard; they had given it up and were sitting side by side, among the anemic poppies, a little apart from the corpse and its upturned beard. But the little boy was still scratching and scraping and tugging until he tumbled a flat stone and forgot the object of his solemn exertions as he crouched on his haunches... and watched with surprise and delight thousands of minute brown ants seething, zigzagging, dispersing, heading for places of safety in the Gard, and the Aude, and the Drome, and the Var, and the Basses-Pyrenees-we two paused only in Pau" (243). This is the reality of his marriage, and as harsh as it is he pauses only briefly to recognize it, brush it off, and continue the relationship.

He has made the choice to hang on and try to control what is happening in his marriage. This tragic side of marriage is often seen in relationships, that is when couples stay together regardless of how terrible things are simply because they have learned from society that they are expected to keep trying. As Nabokov continues to develop his ideas of control and power, his use of symbolism introduces the effects of blame in the relationship: there is no control when faced with blame, and our narrator expresses this in his writings. "The dog", she said, "the dog we left. I cannot forget the poor dog."The honesty of her grief shocked me, as we had never had any dog."I know", she said, "but I tried to imagine we had actually bought that setter. And just think, he would be now whining behind a locked door."There had never been any talk of buying a setter" (243).

The dog is a symbol of their marriage; the marriage never existed on the terms that his wife wanted and he is to blame. When a relationship breaks down, regardless of who is at fault, someone is always blamed. The narrator would have liked to blame his wife for the failures of their marriage, for she had committed adultery, but she was more powerful in her blame tactics. The narrator was viewed to be the one at blame for the marriage failing, it did not matter what his wife had done; through her blame he was left without any control over his circumstances.

She used her symbolic dog, and went to friends with her story of the dog, and professed that her husband, with his own hands, had killed the dog. The significance her is that her story of blame was believed by their friends. This could be reflective of societal beliefs that men are traditionally the power holders in the relationship, and that women are without the power but do possess morals within the relationship. That is, that men because of their traditional gender roles of being the one in power and control are easily blamed for their mistakes; and that the woman is more of a victim to be believed because she has less power in the relationship, and as a woman she possesses more moral control within the relationship. Stereotyping is common because of our human tendency to generalize; we assume that men are in control and have more power in relationships. Nabokov shows through his characters in the letter that this generalization of man does not apply to all marriages, especially the narrator's marriage, for as hard as he tries he exercises no control over his marriage or his wife.

In the end the narrator, like many men in our society, bares the blame and guild of his failed marriage regardless of his actual actions. This is not rare, even though Nabokov wrote his story in 1944 you see the same behaviors in married couples today. The narrator of That in Aleppo Once, reveals many emotions throughout his letter and he leaves us with a final thought: these emotions and circumstances that he must bear guilt, blame, denial, and loss all play a part in relationships that are troubled, and bring with them a certain sadness.