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Home Marriage, Mismarriage and Meaning in William Trevor's Short Fiction

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Marriage, Mismarriage and Meaning in William Trevor's Short Fiction

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Identifier	Thesis 1656
Author	McGuire, Kellie Lambert
Title	Marriage, Mismarriage and Meaning in William Trevor's Short Fiction
Publisher	Central Connecticut State University
Date	2002
Resource Type	Master's Thesis
Notes	The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the use of marriage as a literary device in William Trevor's short fiction. Trevor has continually questioned the essence of matrimony in moral and psychological terms, attempting to define marriage and its ultimate meaning in human life. Through his characters' views, ages and experiences, the author's honest look at matrimonial unions provides for a unique study into why people initially marry, why marriage often fails, why some stay married despite obvious flaws in their relationships, and why some not only survive but flourish as married couples. The author's treatment of this topic is unique because he uses marital relationship as a venue to pursue individual moral depths and truths. This thesis is divided into three chapters, beginning with 'Illusions of Marriage,' a discussion of Trevor's stories concerning premarital illusions about marriage, as well as elements of courtship, choosing spouses, and the realities of the wedding day. Several stories, including 'The Ballroom of Romance,' 'The Property of Collette Nervi,' 'The Wedding in the Garden,' and 'The Grass Widows' feature unmarried characters or newlywed characters facing these situations. Trevor uses these tales to demonstrate how characters search for fulfillment via a human relationship but are unsure of how to find it. As a result, many end up walking down the aisle with a host of untruths. A few do find honesty and a possibility of a positive marriage, though most of these stories show failure on both counts. The second chapter, 'The Middle Marriages,' focuses on husbands and wives facing marital problems, including boredom and weariness, mismarriages, burdens of children, infidelity, divorce, and lies. Stories considered include 'A Happy Family,' 'Access to the Children,' and 'Beyond the Pale,' among others, as well as the novella Reading Turgenev and Trevor's autobiographical essay collection, Excursions in the Real World. In these stories Trevor presents the reader with a vision of marriage which points to hidden and revealed truths and highlights both moral decay and depth. For this part of the marriage experiment, the author uses characters both lost beneath lies as well as truth-tellers who seek epiphanies of honesty. The last chapter, 'Lasting Marriage,' discusses the most revealing of Trevor's intentions in his marital portrayals. Stories such as 'Autumn Sunshine' and 'On The Zaterre,' 'The Piano-Tuner's Wives' and 'Widows' are included. In these types of tales, Trevor's view of marriage reveals that human relationship exists in a spiritual dimension. For the writer, matrimonial bonds impinge upon a spiritual essence, and although fallible, these marriages are noble experiments on which people embark in search of ultimate truths. His marriages are paradoxes, institutions subject to potential traumas and moral quandaries because of two unique spouses. The individuality of both husband and wife defines the marriage, because prior to the wedding, and in some cases after the wedding, the two operated in worlds of separate circumstances.
Subject	Trevor, William, 1928- Marriage in literature
Department	Department of English
Advisor	Bonaccorso, Richard, 1941-
Type	Text
Digital Format	application/pdf
Language	eng
OCLC number	713734961
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