Relationships are not easy by any means. There are three pieces of literature in this unit that express this truth very well. “The Storm” and “The Story of an Hour” are both works by Kate Joplin, and Andrew Marvell continues the expression of this feeling in his poem “To His Coy Mistress.” Each of these poems allows the reader to get a perspective on how different relationships have different complications and how every situation is a little different, yet the same.
In Kate Joplin’s “The Storm,” she writes about a 19th century southern love story. It does a good job of giving an easy to follow example of how relationships are complicated. The piece tells the story of how a small boy, Bibi, and his father, Bobinot, wait out a big Louisiana storm at a local store. They begin to get worried about the third member of their family, Calixta, but they don’t know what to do to help her. Calixta is at home and realizes that there is a storm brewing. Just then, on of her old boyfriends, Alcee, just so happens to be passing by and runs to her house when the bottom begins to fall out of the storm. She continues to get more and more worried about her family. To take her mind off things, her and Alcee begins to talk, but before they know it, they begin making out, and then continue to love on each other. This does the job and totally distracts her from the storm that’s raging outside.
As the storm begins to pass, he leaves. A few minutes later, Bibi and Bobinot come home to check on Calixta after worrying about her all night long. She acts like she is really glad to see them and they never know that her ex was there overnight. A few days after the storm is over, Alcee writes a letter to his wife, Clarisse, saying it's good with him if she wants to stay longer on her trip. She is good with that because she thinks a break from her husband will be good for a few extra days. Little did she know that he was cheating on her with his ex.
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Kate Joplin achieves this same emotion in another one of her works “The Story of an Hour.” This story is about Louise Mallard who has some heart trouble. She doesn’t know about her husband’s death, and people close to her don’t know how to tell het the tragic news. Her sister, Josephine, is the one that eventually tells her this news. She finds out that her beloved husband died in a railroad accident. She begins crying ferociously and goes upstairs cry alone in her room. Louise looks out an open window and looks at nature. While she’s doing that she smells approaching rain and hears a guy on the corner yelling out what he’s selling. She suddenly begins to get an uneasy feeling. She begins repeating the word “free” to herself over and over again for some odd reason. Her sister starts knocking on her door begging her to come out, warning her that she’ll get sick if she doesn’t. Louise tells her to go away but finally gives in and opens the door. They both go down stairs together and the front door unexpectedly opens, and in comes her supposed dead husband. He hadn’t been in the train accident or even aware that one had happened. The sight of him caused Louise to have a heart attack and die then and there from shock of happiness.
Andrew Marvel took a page out of Choplins book so to say and tried to portray those same feelings in his poem titled “To His Coy Mistress.” It’s spoken by a nameless man to a nameless woman, both who don’t have descriptions. The speaker tells the mistress how much he likes her and admires her. Only thing is there isn’t much time for the two of them. He tells her that life is short but death is forever. He warns her that when she’s on her death bed, worms will try to “do the deed” with her if she refuses to do it with him. He then says that now that he’s told her what will happen when she dies, they should go ahead and do it while they’re still young. He says that they can release all their held-up frustrations during it which will give them both “freedom.” This poem gives us a look inside all the many confusing thoughts of the characters.
Overall, I believe that each of these three respective pieces give their own examples of the different complications in different relationships. Every relationship, no matter what kind, has complications. In “The Storm” her ex-boyfriend comes back into the picture which rekindles the old flame that they once had. This complicates her and her currents husband’s relationship. In “The Story of an Hour” the woman is grieving over what she believes to be her dead husband. After some time, her husband shows up at the door and causes her to have a heart attack which ultimately kills her. This obviously causes complication in their relationship because now this poor man’s wife is dead over one big misunderstanding. This trend continues in “To His Coy Mistress” where this guy is trying so hard to get this girl he likes to get down and dirty with him. However, his method of trying causes things to get awkward between the two. Ultimately, he never achieves his goal and ruins their relationship. All three of these readings are great examples of how relationships have their own specific complications and the effects they have on the relationship as a whole.
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