For a long time in the history of
literature, authors were hardly ever interested in writing stories about the
scars of their own selves. In contrary to that, one big similarity shared by the
authors in the confessional period was that they were admitting “brokenness” in
their writings. They wrote stories regardless of the glance of the society. Although the stories written in that period are based on admitting what the authors have done, they don’t end at
that point. The authors further underscore the meanings of what they have done
so. In the short story called “Sarah Cole: A type of love story” by Russell
Banks and the one called “The Most Beautiful Woman in Town” by Bukowski, the
authors not only confess their privates, but also imply deeper meanings of
their actions.
In “Sarah Cole: A type of love
story,” Ron, the main character of the story, is an attractive guy who
has only gone through people who superficially liked him because he was
handsome. He meets a girl named Sarah, who is almost on the other side of himself.
Sarah is not good looking; she is very ugly. Unlike what Ron has
expected, she starts up the conversation first, looking full of confidence. Though
she is confident, contrary to what people usually expect from ugly people, her
confidence is actually a fake representative of her fragile self. She acts
confidently because she is the least confident woman. She cannot get any lower
than that. Her broken heart is what actually exists under the cover of
confidence. As time passes, the narrator realizes that Sarah is not so much different
from other “ugly girls” inside; he finds that she wants to boast about her handsome boyfriend
to others. In the story, the disappointed narrator confesses that he acts cruel
to her, to kill the “vapid” relationship on purpose.
In “The Most Beautiful Woman in Town,” the
narrator is an ugly man. On the other hand, Cass, another main character, is physically attractive, very
much. Grown up in a not so happy family background, she has grown scar from the
beginning. Also, with her relatively long experience with men, she has been
hurt because of those who considered her as an object, a sex machine, and
nothing more than that. As a denial of the objectification done by the men around her,
she prefers ugly men. She thinks ugly people have more personality than
physically attractive men. The narrator is “chosen” for this reason. While Cass
is going out with the narrator, she frequently tries to destroy her beauty, as
a test to confirm whether he still likes her without the beauty. She relies on
the man for his seeming to be different. However, the narrator, though seeming
to be a different man, likes her for both her body and herself. Throughout the
story he confesses that he eventually gives up protecting her, causing the
death of Cass.
Through the voices of the narrators,
both authors confess what they have done to their “loves”. One of them describes his
realization of how it was all “a type of love story” he had, meaning it was
typical. The other admits his similarity with other “woman-objectifying” men,
who did not have much strength to save his love forever. The essence of the
stories is not only on the authors telling the true stories of their lives, but
also on what these stories actually represent in reality. The two stories
reveal that there is no pure love existing in the world. They show the process
of how Sarah and the narrator from the story by Bukowski turn out to be no
different than ordinary people who love for their benefits and pursue materialistic
values, though both of them do not seem to be so. Thus, the confessions of the
two narrators not only tell their truths, but the truths of the whole society.
Both Russel Banks of “Sarah Cole: A type of
love story” and Charles Bukowski of “The Most Beautiful Woman in Town” confess their “real” selves, revealing the things they have done, which might
have been considered inappropriate to be the topic of writing long time ago.
Through the confession of their stories, they also accentuate the confound
revelation of the world and how the relationships between people work.
Yoonju Chung: Interesting to point out that confidence was a means of concealing her real identity of the least confident woman. I thought she was genuine and her genuity was the reason why Ron fell in love with Sarah, unlike other girls who were superficially attracted by his "beauty" (like Cass in "The Most Beautiful Woman In Town" by Charlees Bukowski) Although i thought differently, I think you make a point! Also, I like your introduction connecting confessional period authors' characteristics with this story. I would be better if you further elaborated on why he had to act the way he did to Sarah and made your thesis more concrete.
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