Love may be a puzzling concept that is complex to understand. Love is unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another. Love can be seen as a strong affection for another derived out of kinship or personal ties; however it can also be evident in the devotion to a person, or a way of life. In the short stories “Killings” and “A Rose for Emily” both demonstrate different forms of love, and the outcome of what love can lead too. Love of one's personal ideals impairs one's capacity to see their weaknesses and faults. Having affection for something is supposed to be a selfless action but it has the ability to turn into selfish acts eventually. In these short stories, it is apparent that the characters all acquire love that leads them
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In the “Killings” by Andre Dubus, considers the gap between people’s moral duty to society and the primitive instinct to protect and avenge their loved ones. In the beginning of the story we see Matt as a really fragile character. There are other factors that affected, the main character, Matt’s actions but it was his vulnerability of losing someone he cherished deeply that left a void in his life. He loves his wife and always seeing her pained by the fact that his son’s killer is able to walk around free. It also hurts him and fills him with grief to see his wife this way. With a loss of affection, Matt is leading towards an isolated life. His character seems to be heading down a dark path throughout the story, and he is not the same character he was by the end. Dubus reminds the readers just how abruptly and adamantly their lives can be changed. Life is unpredictable with emotions like love that can make people do unreasonable things like murder. However, Matt’s action “is a rational act, an extermination to eliminate Strout from their world and end Ruth’s pain” (Kennedy 121). Matt never intended to do the things he did until the day he lost his son. Matt claims he has to take care of the situation because it is too hard for Ruth, but the reader may wonder if that is just his excuse for him to make it honorable. As readers are left to wonder did he really do it for his wife whom he loves, …show more content…
Throughout the story, one can see Emily’s unusual relationships with her father, the community, and her lover. Emily withdraws from the present time of reality into the timelessness of delusions. Her father’s love of the old South was embedded into the relationship he had with her by not letting any man of the new age come near his daughter—the last of her kind. It can be inferred that of the fathers love is a factor that contributed to Emily’s acts, “[the community] remember[ed] all the young men her father had driven away” (Faulkner 98). When Emily’s father dies, her refusal to accept his death suggests the she denies this old way of life is truly gone. She was no longer a prisoner to her father’s love “and [the town] knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling that which had robbed her, as people will” (Faulkner 98). She rejects accepting the death of the South even when faced with the evidence of its corpse, her father; she cannot let it go, for she also loved the old South. When Emily finds a lover that is the epitome of a new era; the town knew “that he was not a marrying man” (99). When Emily realizes that she cannot seem to get her lover to stay, the readers
In the “Killings” by Andre Dubus, considers the gap between people’s moral duty to society and the primitive instinct to protect and avenge their loved ones. In the beginning of the story we see Matt as a really fragile character. There are other factors that affected, the main character, Matt’s actions but it was his vulnerability of losing someone he cherished deeply that left a void in his life. He loves his wife and always seeing her pained by the fact that his son’s killer is able to walk around free. It also hurts him and fills him with grief to see his wife this way. With a loss of affection, Matt is leading towards an isolated life. His character seems to be heading down a dark path throughout the story, and he is not the same character he was by the end. Dubus reminds the readers just how abruptly and adamantly their lives can be changed. Life is unpredictable with emotions like love that can make people do unreasonable things like murder. However, Matt’s action “is a rational act, an extermination to eliminate Strout from their world and end Ruth’s pain” (Kennedy 121). Matt never intended to do the things he did until the day he lost his son. Matt claims he has to take care of the situation because it is too hard for Ruth, but the reader may wonder if that is just his excuse for him to make it honorable. As readers are left to wonder did he really do it for his wife whom he loves, …show more content…
Throughout the story, one can see Emily’s unusual relationships with her father, the community, and her lover. Emily withdraws from the present time of reality into the timelessness of delusions. Her father’s love of the old South was embedded into the relationship he had with her by not letting any man of the new age come near his daughter—the last of her kind. It can be inferred that of the fathers love is a factor that contributed to Emily’s acts, “[the community] remember[ed] all the young men her father had driven away” (Faulkner 98). When Emily’s father dies, her refusal to accept his death suggests the she denies this old way of life is truly gone. She was no longer a prisoner to her father’s love “and [the town] knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling that which had robbed her, as people will” (Faulkner 98). She rejects accepting the death of the South even when faced with the evidence of its corpse, her father; she cannot let it go, for she also loved the old South. When Emily finds a lover that is the epitome of a new era; the town knew “that he was not a marrying man” (99). When Emily realizes that she cannot seem to get her lover to stay, the readers