Relationship Between The Husband And Wife example essay topic

Respect for Our Humanity: 180^0 of Difference For purposes of this assignment I have selected the Raymond Carver stories 'So Much Water So Close To Home' and 'The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off'. The wife in the first story and the father in the second both undergo change when placed in situations which cause them to consider the value and dignity of human life. These reactions are called forth by interaction with other characters, the wife being affected by her husband and the father by his friend. In the first story we see how an uncommunicative man who is so selfish and morally devoid that he causes his wife to undergo three distinct stages of emotion (empathy, anger, complacency). She eventually succumbs to her husband's benightedness in the context of their marital relationship.

The second story examines how a man's moral conflict, as demonstrated by his introspection and consciousness of guilt, can be equally ruinous. The father's belief system is shattered after a series of circumstances culminate with his friend's suicide. He endures a transition from being supportive and compassionate to being shaken, overwhelmed and guilt-ridden. These two stories demonstrate the extremes that can be reached on a person's own moral compass. The husband in 'So Much Water So Close To Home' is so lacking morally, that in a criminal context, he might be considered sociopathic.

He would seem not to possess the least bit of understanding for the concept of decency and feeling toward his fellow human being. On the contrary, the father / friend in 'The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off' is condemned by an overabundance of concern for people, to a point that his internalization consumes him, destroying his relationship with his son. The wife in 'So Much Water So Close To Home' is the narrator, so we see the marital relationship from her perspective. She tells us that the husband and his friends, while on a fishing trip, discover the body of a murdered girl.

These men continue their trip and delay reporting this find for 2-3 days, until they are on their way home. The husband is an amoral individual who throughout the story is incapable of change as is shown by his lack of respect for the death of this murdered girl; his collusion with his fishing buddies to delay notification to proper authorities of this discovery until they conclude their trip; his consistent intake of alcohol to dull his senses; his marital treatment of his wife through the physical act of sex rather than lovemaking and his selfish sensitivity to criticism without any consciousness of guilt, when he remarks, 'I think I know what you need', as he begins to unbutton her blouse. (p. 87, par. 8) In reaction to the husband, the wife undergoes change in three definite ways. She, as narrator, first tells us how she attempts through conversation at the breakfast table to discuss with her husband his response when the body was found. The reason he doesn't discuss the girl's death with his wife is that 'she was dead' (p. 80, par. 2).

He rejects her efforts and interprets them as criticism, resulting in the husband refusing to have any conversation on this topic. Her frustration with her husband's reticence results in the second stage, anger, which is manifested by her breaking dishes. Empathizing with the deceased young girl and her loved ones by recalling a similar incident in her own childhood, she decides to show her respect by attending the stranger's funeral service. Upon her return from the funeral, she finally enters a third stage, complacency, where she accepts the status quo recognizing that her husband still would not respect the memory of the young girl by even asking about the service and its circumstances. Instead his callousness and selfishness are again illustrated when he begins fondling her, preparatory to another loveless copulation, and she simply puts up with it.

It is almost inconceivable that a fellow human can be as devoid of feeling as is our husband here. His ambivalence can almost be equated with that of a sociopath in a psychological setting. The inability to even understand that his complicity in not immediately reporting the finding of the girl's body would very likely cause additional needless pain to the family of the girl by extending their distress over their missing child. Also as a practical matter, this hesitation might well adversely affect the gathering of evidence in a murder case.

Conversely, the wife attempts vainly to draw her husband into conversation, centering on the moral issue of not caring about this girl, which results in her frustration and rising anger. To remain in the marriage she must accept her husband's moral defects despite her own innate compassion because it is obvious he will not change. Ultimately the relationship between the husband and wife may be considered unchanged as she acquiesces and accepts her husband for who he is. The second story, 'The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off' covers a more complex situation as narrated by title character's son. This story focuses on the relationship between the father and his co-worker, a friend who is given the seemingly derisive name 'Dummy' due to his slow-witted ness together with other handicaps.

Dummy is a dependable and conscientious worker who is married to a wife rumored to be adulterous. Despite the cruelty of other co-workers, the father, Del Fraser, considers him a friend. Dummy owns land containing a pond and is encouraged by Fraser to stock the pond with bass with the apparent understanding that this would be a joint project between the two men for angling enjoyment. Dummy shortly becomes emotionally attached and very protective of these bass. This is voiced by Del, 'You'd reckon the fool was married to them fish, the way he acts. ' (p. 94, par. 1) Dummy refuses to allow anyone to fish from his pond, even his friend Del.

Subsequently, an act of nature, in the form of a flood, encroaches upon and erodes away the pond, dispersing the bass. The loss of his fish results in the emotional breakdown of Dummy during which he becomes distant, misses work, kills his wife for the infidelity he had previously overlooked or ignored, and eventually commits suicide by drowning himself in the what was left of the fish pond. The title character father may well be on shaky emotional grounds before he met the Dummy character due to unexplained circumstances in World War II and an unexplained reason why he moved his family back to his own father's farm - the location where the story takes place. He is shown as a man who has a very close and supportive relationship with his son and is compassionate and self-assured enough to develop a friendship with someone who is laughed at by others. He respects his friend Dummy's decisions and actions throughout the story, but is devastated by the eventual murder-suicide.

The son narrates, 'BUT I don't think dad really believed it. I think he just didn't know who to blame or what to say. ' (p. 103, par. 6) As a friend, his empathy and kindness for Dummy results in feelings of guilt in which he blames himself for starting the chain of events (i. e., suggests to Dummy to stock pond, Dummy emotionally attaches himself to fish, flood destroys pond / fish, Dummy snaps ending in the murder-suicide) that leads to his own ensuing breakdown. The father even sees symbolic causation in the fact that the suicide takes place in the fishpond.

This father is compassionate, companionable and decent, but nevertheless sinks to a destructive, guilt-ridden level because of self-inflicted blame for something he had no control over, true responsibility or fault for 'and finally he blamed himself -... ' (p. 89, par. 2) His intense sense of morality got in the way of clear thinking. The morality shown by the father is of heroic proportions. He is a role model for his son, who considerately befriends a man who is unfairly rejected by others. The unfortunate aspect of this man's good character is that he would seem to be unable to put any reasonable restraint upon his empathy and innate sense of decency.

A balance would have allowed him to recognize where the line of responsibility should have been drawn. We are all guided down the path of life by our own moral compass. These stories explore what lies in store for those who refuse to practice true moral understanding. Too much or too little can be equally destructive. I would hope an individual would respect the dignity that is found in every person, for without this basic principle in our lives, we cannot truly consider ourselves civilized. ' The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes nor between parties either - but right through the human heart.

' - Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

Bibliography

Carver, Raymond. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1989. Thomas M. Brett College Writing on the Internet.