Analysis Of Heartburn By Nora Ephron

Superior Essays
Nora Ephron’s novel, “Heartburn” is a memoir like story about one woman’s’ experience in processing lost love, life, and food.

Nora uses flashbacks throughout her novel to describe her lost loves and to give understanding of her feelings of and experience with betrayal due to her husband Mark’s affair, Charlie, her ex-husband’s affair with her best friend and her good friend Arthur Seigal’s affairs. She says often that she wants her readers to understand her relationships and perspectives, why she feels a certain way at different points throughout her crisis. She feels betrayed by men in particular, and says, “What she feels is so astonishing, is not that the number of men who remain faithful is small, but that there are any at all.” (64)
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Rachel is the main witness. During this time she has another flashback of a murder that she sort of witnesses. She hears a scream while in their home. When she tries to tell Mark something happens he dismisses her, he doesn’t listen. It’s only when they find out something actually did happen next door, Mark exploits the story in an article he writes. She says she tells her readers this because she knew stuff. And that was important, because Mark didn’t pay attention to her. She is describing for us her relationship with Mark, he is not present. And building a case against him. She is doing this to lay out, draw out the marriage relationship and determine whether it’s worth saving or not. …show more content…
(81) “ I want you to understand why I resisted getting married. I didn’t trust mark. And I had already been married.” Her therapist tells Rachel that, “she picked Charlie because she knew he would deprive her the way her mother and father did, and she resolves that everyone on earth is the person you shouldn’t get involved with.” 143. Her ex-husband Charlie has an affair with her best friend Brenda. She brings up her relationship with Brenda throughout the novel making the reader believe that betrayal really has been a theme in her life. She recounts and interacts with her at a wedding where Brenda repents to Rachel. Rachel admits to herself that it was really Charlie she hated and was angry at, because he was the one who made a commitment and vow to be faithful, the same as any spouse. She talks about her feelings regarding betrayal in general and then ends it with her absolute accurateness and knowledge of who is to blame in the current event, meaning she has learned something from her prior betrayal. She remembers Charlie’s excuses, she remembers how much of a naïve fool she felt like when Charlie and Brenda slept together at a weekend Rachel invites Brenda to with her and Charlie. “Why does she end up with these men who make such lousy excuses.” She also describes how miserable she was with Charlie, in contrast to how much

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