Birthday Bash
Birthday Party is a short story describing how a man’s seemingly small birthday party leads to an argument between him and his wife. Due to the opposition between the characters’ appearances and their actions, readers consider whether appearance and reality are equivalent. Through diction, symbolism and tone, the author creates a situation where the character’s appearances are not the true representations of themselves.
The wife represents the innocent female archetype because she remains naïve and optimistic in her actions and characteristics while denying the failure of her marriage. The recurring image of the wife’s “big hat” (3) which is “gay” (20) creates the perception that the wife is a joyous individual, since …show more content…
The narrator’s repetition of the couple as “they” (1) suggests that the narrator perceived them as being one, since it connotes a union between the two. The narrator considers that the couples seems “unmistakably married” (1), which has the particular diction of using “unmistakably” as opposed to any other word with the same denotative meaning. The word “unmistakably” is the only word to implant in the reader’s mind the word mistake in reference to their marriage, which reflects the true sentiment that the couple’s marriage is a failure. The narrator then separates the couple into “man” (2) and “woman” (3), which is reflective of the distance between the two in their marriage. After the husband’s belligerent response to surprise, the narrator unexpectedly switches to the second person and speaks directly to the reader saying “you looked at this and you saw this and you thought” (14) personally engaging the reader and confirming the truth for them, meanwhile also ensuring the husband to be a villain. The narrator’s tone to the party is indifferent, but her tone towards the husband is disgust and anger, while her tone towards the wife is …show more content…
Most readers will view the husband as an antagonist and the wife as a naïve optimist because his response isn’t right and she’s too hopeful. However, marriages like this are very common, and there is a lot of pressure to remain married because of the belief that marriage is a lifelong union, despite that the husband and wife are no longer happy with each other, resulting in recurring arguments, anger and