Dunstan Ramsay, the novel’s protagonist exhibits the issue of how a rough childhood can impede on relationships later on in life. Dunstan’s relationship with his mother leads him to develop three problems that arise in his dating life. The first problem is Dunstan’s trust issues; he can never fully trust a woman due to his betrayal of trust with his mother. The second problem is Dunstan’s negative depiction of sexual relations. Due to his mother’s stern moral beliefs, he does not have much interest in sexual relations and has negative views on it.
In Stephen's case, it focuses instead on a missed opportunity for true companionship. In the case of the Gradgrinds, you've got an entirely intellectually unequal match where spouses are indifferent to each other. Mr. Gradgrind's marriage to his feeble, complaining wife is not exactly a source of misery for either of them, but neither are they or their children happy. The Gradgrind family is not a loving or affectionate one. The main unhappy marriage showcased by the novel is between Louisa Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby.
Ethan Frome Throughout the novel Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, the main character Ethan goes through hard time in his life, internal and external which eventually lead to his downfall. Ethan is very much a tragic hero because of various tragic flaws in him. Ethan From has very poor judgment and lacks the ability to analyze situations. This flaw leads to problems, including marrying Zeena, his wife, as well as having a relationship with Mattie. Another flaw which Ethan has is his lack in ability to communicate with the people around him.
Mrs. Dalloway The narrator in Mrs. Dalloway portrays Clarissa Dalloway as an insecure, anxious, and indecisive lady who has had no true success in the game of love, but plenty of near misses. When she was together with Peter Walsh, they had spoken of marriage but it didn’t work out; and to add injury to insult he ended up marrying an Indian girl he met on a boat ride to India. It is many instances such as this that might have caused Clarissa to become closed up and not as expressive about her emotions like others such as Peter. This trait plays a role in her misfortune when it comes to love; as Peter wants to let loose a wave of emotions and confess to her his true feelings, but thinks as he is talking to her, “Shall I tell her, he thought, or not? He would like to make a clean breast of it all.
Moreover, the older sisters implicitly inferior status in his affections is immediately obvious to the member of the court in attendance.” (Newman 1) Lear does not realize that he is destroying his relationship with his daughter Cordelia, but also he is not realizing that Goneril and Regan’s mischief will lead him into insanity, which later causes the loss of father-daughter bond in the play. As a result King Lear is driven mad with regret and his life will ultimately change due to his initial naivety to the truth. Gloucester gullibility also leads him to mislead his family. As a father he is blind to see the truth
Even though the two women were matched with their cousins, neither of them liked their “fiances”. In one way or another, this led Shah and Muhibi to have angst against the men, pushing them away from their families. They both also didn’t want to disappoint their families, because they knew it would lead to unrest among the older relatives. Not accepting the arranged marriage meant disloyalty, and in the middle east, loyalty is among the highest qualities between families. If you broke that bond, you were ousted immediately.
Poor Charles Kingshaw had lose hope of not having to go to school with Edmund, was stricken with envy and resentment over his mother, Helena Kingshaw, favoring a stranger’s son more than her own. At this point, Edmund Hooper had not only got the favor of Charles’s mother, but power, more than ever, drenched from Charles Kingshaw’s resentment towards him and countering it using both Helena Kingshaw and Josheph Hooper’s ignorance as his shield. The quote “She is my mother, he had thought, mine” shows Charles’s materialistic and furious side, driven by the lack of time spent with Helena and Edmund’s pressure to sin Charles for everything, ever since the start of the story. Also, the following quote,”…Because he knew in truth that he did not care much about her…” infers about Charles Kingshaw’s thought about the matter for a change. The quote reflects on the case as a whole to prove Charles’s neglects upon the situation he had been oppressed in up until now, when what is thought the only object he has some power upon had been lost.
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.
However this could have quite a sad undertone and that Kate is putting on this harsh front to prevent her from marrying into an even more dominant male world. In the Elizabethan times, women were expected to marry and were always ‘looked after’ by men, but once married the woman’s husband was allowed to chastise their wife. There were also very few divorces, meaning once married women were trapped. So Shakespeare could possibly showing that all her inner sadness due to her more loved sister, her lack of beauty and the male dominance that she is being made to marry, could be forcing her to act angrily as she thinks it’s the only way to prevent herself from being unwillingly condemned to marrying the men her father wants her to. Shakespeare also uses Petruchio to emphasise his misogynistic view, as he is able to act very aggressively towards her, and says ‘I’ll cuff you if you strike again’.
Though some may interpret this behaviour as common for a loving wife to exhibit, it is quite clear that this is exactly the kind of behavior that prevents the men in the play from achieving success. Linda and the other limited number of females in the play fill the men in the play with a false sense of confidence and this is the very act that causes the men to deteriorate from their main goals in life. The women in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman do not play a supportive role: Willy’s downfall, Biff’s downfall and Bernard’s success can all be linked back to the excessive support of the women in the play or the lack thereof. Willy Loman’s downfall is directly linked to the excessive support and inflation he receives from his wife and the mistress. Throughout the entirety of the play, we see Linda’s devotion to her husband and her inability to find any fault in Willy.