John Cheever’s “The Season of Divorce” could be viewed as nothing more than a story of hopeless love, a tale of something that could never be. It is through the author’s use of tone in the story that a theme deeper than simple forbidden desire is conveyed. The situation between Ethyl and her husband, the narrator, reflects one of hidden resentment; a product of imposed societal stresses. Through the use of situational irony, Cheever gives the reader a feeling of instability and hopelessness found in a seemingly secure setting, this being a marriage of rather longstanding. With his descriptions of people and places, the deliberations of the characters and the dialogue in the story, the author’s tone lends an atmosphere of despair.
Situational irony is encountered everywhere in the description. It the way in which Cheever gives the descrptions themselves that an feeling of entrapment and despondency emerges. Dr. Trencher and his wife are a prime example. While the doctor is described as blue-eyed and young, his wif…
Truth, Illusion, and Examination in Sylvia Plath’s The Mirror
Truth, Illusion, and Examination in Sylvia Plath’s The Mirror
Who would be so pretentious as to suggest that they were “silver and exact,” and that they “have no preconceptions?” Poet Sylvia Plath dares to “meditate on the opposite wall” in her poem The Mirror to reveal to her reader some of her own insecurities, the theme of this, and several other of her poems. The poet does some introspective exploration in both stanzas; the two carefully intended to ‘mirror’ each other. It is her use of private or contextual symbolism, her use of symbols to create an atmosphere of truth versus illusion, and her design of the mirror to symbolize her inner-self that make this poem such a vehicle for self-examination. Plath’s message is not conveyed as clearly to the reader as her reflection. She encrypts her theme using an intensely private, symbolic vernacular.
The symbols planted throughout the poem cannot be categorized as universal. There are no Biblical, historical, or cultural allusions. Instead Plath communicates the instantaneous miracle of reflection by saying “whateve…