Theme of Marriage in English Literature

Running Head: ENGLISH LITERATURE
English Literature
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ENGLISH LITERATURE
Introduction
Marriage and family have been two recurrent themes in the modern literature since
the past centuries. These themes have been used as prominent devices to convey the social
messages and the conventions along with providing insight into the workings of the human
interactions being the most intimate. It helps the readers to relate with the views of the
society about marriage and their own marriages in that context. In this regard the masterpiece
of Jane Austen can be mentioned as it is the most appropriate piece of work that depicts the
most creative use of marriage as a tool to reflect on it. The beginning lines of the novel helps
the readers to understand the zeitgeist of the marriage of early 19th century. The novel clearly
raises voiced against the race of getting daughters to be married off soon to wealthy men. It
has well presented the relationship between love and marriage and presented how many
women require to marry men whom they are not in love with only for the financial security.
Since that particular period, women have always been subjected to suppression and
oppression. Marriage has been an official way of subduing women of all ages and hold power
over them so that they cannot raise their voice. This essay will deal with the theme of
marriage in several pieces of literature and describe which story connects with the theme of
marriage in the best way and how is it connected.
Discussion
Firstly, Yiyun Li’ “The Flawless Silence” is written from a different perspective and
reaction that is important for any of the younger reader especially female reader. Most of her
short stories focus on the aftermath of election 2016 and the way the differences in the voting
can be the reason of marital issues having woven the public nature of politics into the private
relationships. The title of the story “ Flawless” abridges the character of Min, who has spent
all her life trying to be perfect , the perfect wife and the perfect daughter too. The passive

2ENGLISH LITERATURE
nature of her comes to a shock when she meets an 80 years old man spending two decades
with the obsession of sending emails without any of the reciprocations. In simple words, the
story presents the ostracizing of conservatives in the liberal spheres but the actual problem of
the story develops from imbalance in the power structure. The disparity is due to the
masculine-dominated marriages of Min and Sandra who is the mother of a son who supports
Trump ( Li and Yiyun 34). The wives voted for Clinton whereas their husbands did for
Trump. Election becomes a serious issue for their marriages and reasons for fight. There is a
struggle to control one another’s opinions and the opinions of the daughters too along with
their reaction to the elections. The character Min, protests silently against her husband and
gradually wishes the old man to die (Major 22). Her silent struggles are the main focus of the
story and it ends with the reactionary movement of the women who finally finds her voice.
On the other hand, there are more than just the characters in Shakespeare’ play
Othello. There is a message to marriage and there is a message to power too. Although both
the central characters are married, the love they have is quit questionable (Boyer 199). The
intention of Shakespeare was to convey not the message of love but how power influences on
marriage. The main characters are Othello who is married to Desdemona and the other
character is Iago who is married to Emilia (King 12). The story of Othello ends at tragedy and
begins where comedy ends usually. There is a group of critics who focus on the theme of race
but there is another group that love to deal with the theme of marriage along with the actions
of the primary characters. In the wooing scene of Act 1, Scene 3, the theme of marriage is the
most relatable. The consummation of the marriage rights in Act 1, Scene 1 is also highly
important for discussing the theme of marriage(Jawahar 17 ). In Othello, courtly love is
defined in terms of women’s loss of power and submission of them to patriarchy of the
society. However, Othello does not follow the convention of the courtly love and transforms
into the ideal of Petrarchan lover of the Renaissance period. Mockery and Satire both have