Shining Houses
At any given place or time, people are faced with difficult choices and problems, but it is often hard to solve these when we feel the need to give in to the pressure shackled to us by the public. We want to please and be pleased at the same time; a perpetual circle of lost struggles. In these two short stories, "The Shining Houses," by Alice Munro and "On the Rainy River," by Tim O'Brien these struggles are both revealed within the mind's of the protagonists and within their current society.
In "The Shining Houses," the character Mary is placed in a very awkward and torn situation. Over the years she has developed a reasonably close relationship with the elderly Mrs. Fullerton and has ...
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Inside, Mary feels the need to stand up for Mrs. Fullerton but the pressure shed upon her from the neighbors makes her relinquish slightly.
Similar to "The Shining Houses, in "On the Rainy River," the narrator is subjected to a critical, life altering decision. He has no faith in his country, furthermore, this war, but is relentlessly drafted into it. He knows it will crush his family, and that perhaps they, along with friends and foes, will label him as an unscrupulous traitor if he abandons them. This internal struggle incisively reflects the judgment that society passes oh-so ignorantly. Eventually though, the narrator decides to flee to Canada and spends several days at a lodge on the Rainy River, contemplating his choices. He literally finds himself straddling a boat with the opportunity to swim to either side; a life in Canada or at home in the United States. Like Mary, Tim can only do what he thinks is best, which is to plainly face the ridicule and mockery of ...
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Shining Houses. (2014, June 9). Retrieved April 20, 2025, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Shining-Houses/104197
"Shining Houses." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 9 Jun. 2014. Web. 20 Apr. 2025. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Shining-Houses/104197>
"Shining Houses." Essayworld.com. June 9, 2014. Accessed April 20, 2025. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Shining-Houses/104197.
"Shining Houses." Essayworld.com. June 9, 2014. Accessed April 20, 2025. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Shining-Houses/104197.
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