Brandon
Miszke
Professor
Brady
English
102
April
11, 2012
Marriage is not Always Functional
All
around the world people are getting married each day. Your wedding is supposed
to be the start of your life together but unfortunately with marriage, people
sometimes tend to lose what they once had and become lonely. The statistics for
infidelity in a marriage is 30 to 60% today. This shows that people think it is
okay to cheat on their spouses. Marriage is full of secrets that are used to
protect the ones we love. In a marriage that’s not satisfying, people tend to
turn to others for comfort and fulfillment. In both “The Storm” by Kate Chopin
and “Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri both wives turn to others for romantic
fulfillment. This also holds true in the real world with Tiger Woods and his
cheating scandal.
It is
human nature to want to be comforted and cared about, and people often find
comfort through friends and sometimes people they hardly know. In “The Storm,” Calixta is a mother of
one married to Bobinôt. During
the storm when her son and husband were out, her old friend Alcée, who she
hasn’t seen since her marriage, came to her house. Calixta put her hands to her
eyes, and with a cry, staggered backward. As a bolt of lightning strikes a tree
in the distance, “Alcée's arm encircled her, and for an instant he drew her
close and spasmodically to him” (Chopin 3). This moment is where she turned to
the arms of another man to comfort her in her time of need. This is where she
had an intimate moment with Alcée while her husband and kid were away. There is
this image being created in your head through the word choices on how he
comforts her. He encircles her almost like he is holding her and doesn’t want
to let her go but then he realizes he must. With comfort comes the feeling of
fulfillment that she desires. Comfort also plays a major role in “Interpreter
of Maladies” when Mrs. Das was unfaithful to her husband with his friend. She kept
this a secret and had told know no one for eight years. The result of that one
unfaithful night was the birth of her youngest son, Bobby. She had no close
friends to talk to because when she started having children she had lost
contact with them. Mrs. Das was at a low point in her life because she was no
longer happy and had turned to the comfort of Mr. Kapasi for help. Mrs. Das
said, “It means that I'm tired of feeling so terrible
all the time. Eight years, Mr. Kapasi, I've been in pain eight years. I was
hoping you could help me feel better, say the right thing. Suggest some
kind of remedy"(Lahiri 65).
People always yearn to feel safe and
comforted. It is human nature. She wants to know what to do to feel some
comfort with what she has done. She knows she is wrong but doesn’t know how to
fix it properly. Mrs. Das talks about this discomfort she is having and how she
can’t even look at her kids without this terrible feeling taking over. This is
why she turns to Mr. Kapasi for his interpretation of what she can do to help
cure, once and for all, this pain and discomfort. She has not told anyone this
secret and wants it to just stop haunting her but Mr. Kapasi does not do that
type of interpreting and tells her that she will only feel comfort if she tells
her husband the truth about Bobby. By telling him about her problem she is
looking for personal fulfillment because she want to be at piece with herself.
Everyone is born with this need to be
fulfilled with their life and people turn to drastic things to feel passion as
well. In “The Storm,” Calixta
looks for fulfillment in old friend Alcée
and finds it as she is unfaithful to her husband in their bed. The storm
increases in intensity and the passion and desire between the two heats up.
Calixta gives in to “The generous abundance of her passion, without guile or
trickery, was like a white flame which penetrated and found response in depths
of his own sensuous nature that had never yet been reached” (Chopin
4).
This infidelity that Calixta displays
clearly express that she is not completely satisfied with her husband because
she had to find pleasure with another man. Someone who is satisfied is faithful
and devoted to their family. She is fulfilling this desire through her old
friend and she is unable to control her desire. She then proceeds to pretend
that nothing happened when her son and husband get home. She does this to
protect her family from the shame she has brought upon them. This constant need
to be fulfilled causes people to break free from the trust and loyalty of their
loved ones. In “Interpreter
of Maladies” Mrs. Das is not satisfied with her husband anymore so she turns to
his friend for fulfillment. After she had had kids she began to fall out of
love with her husband and the spark began to simmer down. Then her husband’s
friend comes to stay for a week and she jumps at the opportunity without
resisting when he puts a move on her.
She made no protest when the friend touched the small of her back as she
was about to make a pot of coffee, then pulled her against his crisp navy suit.
He made love to her swiftly, in silence, with an expertise she had never known,
without the meaningful expressions and smiles Raj always insisted on afterward (Lahiri
64).
She clearly doesn’t feel
what she used to with her husband. When someone who loves their husband has a
chance to cheat they deny it because they don’t want to ruin what they have.
Mrs. Das ignores her conscience and goes for it and the results chang her life
forever. Bobby was born and there was no denying it. She knew it wasn’t Mr.
Das’s but she never said anything and kept it a secret.
People all over the world today still turn to
others for fulfillment and comfort, even celebrities who everyone thinks has it
all. Tiger Woods, a famous golfer, cheated on his wife of two kids with
numerous women. This clearly means that he was not fulfilled with his marriage
life. With two kids at home he was lying to them and his wife when he was
unfaithful. Over days, countless women that he had allegedly been with came to
the surface. He destroyed his family by bringing shame apon them. He turned to
these people he didn’t know in order to fulfill his need to be comforted. As a
role model no one ever expected this to happen. He and his family have always
been in the spotlight and they seem to have it all until he was exposed to the
world as a cheater. This goes to show that people who aren’t happy always try
to find fulfillment in others. But there is an exception and that is the people
who really are in love and know that cheating is not worth the risk. These
people are strong and resist temptation from others and are the ones that are
truly happy.
People
often make mistakes and use lies to protect their loved ones. When a marriage
isn’t what we expect we often turn to others to help fill in what’s missing. In both “The Storm” and “Interpreter
of Maladies,” the wives are unfaithful to their devoted husbands and find comfort
and fulfillment in the arms of another man. This was also true for professional
golfer Tiger Woods when he found fulfillment and comfort with numerous women
when he cheated on his wife. People will always have this need to be fulfilled
and with that comes betrayal.
Work Citied
Chopin,
Kate. The Storm and Other Stories. New York, NY: Feminist, 1974. Print.
Lahiri,
Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment