Cohesive Strangers in Tobias Wolff’s Say Yes - 792 Words

In Tobias Wolff’s Say Yes, a central strain between the husband and wife is illuminated and never settled by the end of the story. The tension revolves around racism and the meaning of true love. In this story plot, point of view and irony reveal a married couple that becomes strangers. The story commences talking about a married couple that seems to have a solid relationship where they work really well together. Having this cohesive and unified relationship really helps to set the story up for the conversation they have about racism and marriage. The husband believes he knows his wife, but he doesn’t really know her at all. The husband says to the wife, â€Å"A person from their culture and a person from our culture could never really know†¦show more content†¦The story makes clear that the husband knows he needs to put a stop to the tension created from the argument so he goes to tell his wife the only thing she wants to hear in the first place. Because the entire story is told through third person limited point of view, the husband doesn’t seem to see how much this argument affects his wife until he speaks to her in the bathroom. The point of view in this story has a lot to do with how the story is perceived. For the entire story, it is told through the husband and narrators perspectives. Because of this, the argument is portrayed as more of a game or competition to see if the husband can win the fight, â€Å"He took a deep breath. He had won the argument but he still felt concerned†(247). The husband is also portrayed in a light that makes him look unsympathetic to his wife’s feelings about their love, â€Å"He hoped that she appreciated how quickly he had come to her aid. He’d acted out of concern for her, with no thought of getting anything in return, but now the thought occurred to him that it would be a nice gesture on her part not to start up that conversation again, as he was tired of it†(247). The story suggests that the husband isn’t taking this argument as seriously as the wife is and that he doesn’t see the severity of the underlying meaning of the fight. C loser to the end of the story the husband finally comprehends how much his words impacted his wife’s