Throughout the book, many of the men and women depicted are unfaithful to their partners. What do you think the author is saying about romantic relationships and marriage?
Created: 11/04/19
Replies: 16
Join Date: 10/15/10
Posts: 3442
Throughout the book, many of the men and women depicted are unfaithful to their partners. What do you think the author is saying about romantic relationships and marriage?
Join Date: 03/14/19
Posts: 208
After reading about the author, I wonder if her depictions of unfaithful partners reflects her own life and experiences. The takeaway is that people are unreliable if one believes what the author shows.
Join Date: 05/14/11
Posts: 119
That they are difficult and not easy to maintain. That there is never enough real sharing and communication because those are just words and we haven't taught ourselves or each other how to do the real thing.
Join Date: 01/01/16
Posts: 454
Join Date: 08/10/17
Posts: 215
I agree that she did not expect relationships to be enduring or faithful. Maybe that was from seeing her parents behavior or from her own relationships or both.
Join Date: 07/10/14
Posts: 72
I doubt there are relationships that have not experienced some sort of test. Perhaps her experience has been that when things become hard it is just easier to leave than to work things out. That is a sad way to go through life but maybe it was her way.
Join Date: 07/16/14
Posts: 387
There are people who NEED to be married to justify their relationships and so, though the relationship may not last--either because one or the other also believes when things aren't going the way they want, and they leave, or they legitimately grow apart--when it ends and another begins, it must be as a married couple. Serial marriages result and I think she was like this. She needed the acceptable condition of marriage but she did not subscribe to working too hard to stay that way and when a buddy of her husband's looked attractive enough, then she was ready to move in with him. Extremely immature attitude I would say.
Join Date: 03/14/19
Posts: 208
Because Lucia Berlin had a "lifelong problem with alcoholism," she must have found it difficult to sustain long-term relationships herself. That fact is then reflected in her writings. She has four sons, but I was unable to discover whether they all had different fathers.
Join Date: 02/24/17
Posts: 64
Join Date: 11/30/19
Posts: 25
Many of her women characters are "in love" but the end result for them shows that love to be shallow or one-sided. In her life Berlin seemed to often be in a crowd of artists, where love may have felt free and temporary, sometimes confused with sexual attraction. So she wrote about what was familiar to her.
Join Date: 04/16/19
Posts: 44
After learning more about the author's personal life, I am thinking that she was basing the stories on how she views marriages. In her own life, she married several times, which could've meant that she believed in the institution but they turned out to be otherwise. Or, it could've been her who had commitment issues.
Join Date: 10/13/14
Posts: 176
Berlin's own life - three failed marriages, alcoholism, moving to several different parts of the U.S. and Mexico - is reflected in her stories. I felt that some of the stories were relating her personal experiences in one way or another.
Join Date: 06/25/14
Posts: 82
I think she is saying that most relationships are not sustainable for long periods of time. People change and when they change they meet other individuals who spark new romantic relationships.
Join Date: 06/05/18
Posts: 245
I found that aspect of her stories very cynical and definitely reflects her own inability to sustain a relationship. I got the impression that romantic relationships and marriage were illusions to her and that her reality was in her children and her surroundings.
Join Date: 05/29/15
Posts: 460
Join Date: 05/26/18
Posts: 77
Berlin seems to see relationships, including marriage, as temporary and unfulfilling. Her characters often look to their partners to fulfill needs and play roles that are not possible for them. In the beginning of the relationship the flaws are overlooked, but over time the flaws become untenable.
Join Date: 05/04/15
Posts: 41
She certainly displays a jaundiced view of romantic relationships (and particularly marriage) throughout her stories. I agree with other posts; she clearly must have suffered in her own relationships, and perhaps didn't have many positive examples of adult relationships during her childhood.
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