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Essay / The Astronomer's Wife: Plot, Symbolism, and Point of View
The Astronomer's Wife is a fictional story by Kay Boyle starring Katherine Ames. The entire story revolves around Ames' lifestyle and experiences as well as how the character interacted with her husband. The plot, setting, symbolism and point of view of this story are the primary concern of this essay. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get an Original EssayThe plot of this story involves several events that define all of the themes that the author presents to his audience. The author began the story by describing Ames as a character with a valuable position in society. Ames did what a reader might call “dirty” work to buy time for people like her husband to think and discover. Ames' relationship with her husband is based on her understanding that her spouse is a man of spirit and spends most of his time studying, meditating, and gazing at the sky using his rooftop telescope. Another event that defines the plot of the story occurred when Ames led the plumber to the garden (Gale, 71). The character took the plumber to a room that was flooded and the plumber suspected a damaged floor line. She showed a lot of innocence and did everything in her power to show respect to her husband. Regarding the purpose of this story, the narration of the tale is limited to the third person. Boyle gives an account very close to Katherine Ames' idea and gives a vivid description of her thoughts. This forms the center of the story after she realizes that she has developed a feeling about how her husband has stunted her emotional life. Additionally, Boyle wrote the story using a style that reflects Ames's growing recognition of her feelings toward her husband. The narration describes Mrs. Ames' thoughts using adjectives that reflect the freedom she possessed in her mind (Hall, 96). However, the sentences became shorter when the narrator began to describe Mrs. Ames' actions and her interaction with the plumber. The shortening of the sentences showed how constrained the character felt. Symbolism is one of the stylistic devices used by the author to explain various ideas in the story. The author used the sewers to represent the gateway to Mrs. Ames' transformation as a person. The sewer represents the great differences between the astronomer and the plumber. The plumber's job requires him to go down to earth while the astronomer's ideas focus on exploring the sky (Bell, 127). Cud's story is a symbol that shows the desire developed by the plumber to fix things. The plumber faced all the problems with great confidence and created a feeling of trust in Mrs. Ames. This caused Ames to admire how good she was compared to her husband. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay The setting of this story emerged as a family story involving a woman (Mrs. Ames) and her husband. The whole story takes place in a family, and the author's main concern is to explain the daily life of the two characters. A garden is another setting in the story that led to the plumber's inclusion as a character in the narrative. This makes Boyle a thoughtful poet and novelist whose ideas cause many changes in the minds of many readers of the story. This makes Astronomer's Wife a hilarious story to read.