Assignment: A tale of two divorces
3/12/12
In “a tale of two divorces”, Roiphe made a statement “my divorce is the tale of two divorces, one that never was and one that was”. The first divorce is her mothers, but the divorce never happened. The second divorce is hers, which did happen. The reason she uses the word “my” in her statement is because, her mother’s divorce which never happened was the reason she had a divorce of her own. Unintentionally she had been following her mother’s foot step without meaning to. The beginning of Roiphe’s essay, she talks about how her father mistreated her mother and made her feel worthless. He would mentally abuse her by telling her harsh things. Make her cry and then scream at her for crying. Her mother started to believe them. He told her mother she was not pretty and he didn’t love her. He would cheat on her and she knew. Roiphe’s mother did not leave her father because she taught she couldn’t be without him, she didn’t know how to. Roiphe’s mother ended up dying at the age of 50. She never divorced her husband. Roiphe then talk about her own marriage. She taught she found someone that was the opposite from her father. But then she had later realized she was in a similar situation like her mother. Her husband cheated on her and she taught it was ok. She taught because they didn’t fight she was not in the same situation. By he made her feel worthless. When she had a baby she realized what love was, and that she was lonely being with her husband.in her essay she said “yes, we are responsible for ourselves, but nevertheless our family stories course and curse through our veins: our memories are not free”.
Roiphe knew she had to get a divorce for her daughter sake. If she stayed with him, history would have most likely repeated itself. Even though a divorce can also affect a child in many drastic ways, before and after.
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