Relationships In Sudden Fiction

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Sudden Fiction Are there any common themes found in relationships? How can one stay on the “timeline” of a relationship, and what factors contribute to the end of one? In Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories, many of the stories focus on the common theme of relationships. Though, each story is written by a different author, there is surely a collective message that they are portraying. As time progresses, a lack of communication and intimacy in a relationship can become more prevalent, thus leading to boredom, or sometimes even violence, which can end the relationship, and halt the timeline. Because of the conflict, a child can be affected negatively and become stuck between the two parents. Between two people, communication can begin to occur less frequently, damaging their relationship. Healthy, effective communication is often times direct, assertive, congenial, and, honest. A lack of this fundamental building block in a relationship can cause many disagreements and arguments. In “Say Yes”, by Tobias Wolff, the relationship between the two people has gone astray partly due to their ineffective communication: “Sometimes his wife got this look where she pinched her brows together and bit her lower lip and started down at something. When he saw her like this he knew he should keep his mouth shut, but he never did. Actually it made him talk more” (74). From here, the couple proceeded to get into quite the argument, showing that their communication habits are, indeed, unhealthy because the husband continued to talk, even though he knew it would lead to a disagreement. This poor communication can transition into tension between partners. The two people in “A Song on Royal Street” by Richard Blessing also struggled with ineffective communication: “’Remember?’ ‘No’” (30). Here, the man is telling the woman about an event that happened on Royal Street many
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