Word: iras
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...while Tyler is not a stylistic innovator, she has an eye for rupture, for the moment where life becomes a little strange, a little alien. At one point in the journey to the funeral, Maggie and Ira argue and he literally leaves her behind at a truck stop. At that moment, Maggie sees the possibilty for flight, for change. She imagines starting over again, reinventing her life. When Ira comes back to her it's both a relief and a disappointment. Maggie goes on as usual, having confronted the possibility of a truly independent life...
...journey reveals the failure of Maggie's dreams. It's mild failure, a dimming of hope and not a crushing defeat. But the bickering in her marriage and her husband's condescension have worn her down. Ira treats Maggie in a dismissive, if occasionally affectionate way. He sees her as flighty. Eventually Maggie can't help but doubt herself and to hope for vicarious happiness to escape a life that isn't what she hoped it would...
...love Maggie pretends exists between Jesse and Fiona reflects the hopes she had for her marriage to Ira. Maggie is caught between what she knows about herself and what her husband tells her she is. For Tyler, love is seeing yourself in your lover's eyes and assessing that version against the person you would like to be. The problem is that we invariably erect barriers to prevent ourselves from truly communicating and from being vulnerable...
...IRA has depicted Maggie to herself as meddlesome and irresponsible. In doing so, he reinforces her worst attributes. Maggie's admiration of Ira, as well as her fear of his disapproval, also transforms Ira. By characterizing him as the strong one, Maggie not only makes herself weak but also insures that he will cultivate the infallibility she ascribes to him. After a quarter-century of marriage these two people become trapped in the selves they have generated for the other. And these representations, however appealing they may once have been, become inflexible, claustrophobic...
Maggie, finally, lacks perspective on her own life. Though she feels that Ira attacks her, needles her, she nonetheless believes she has a marriage that is the envy of those around her. When she discovers it is not, she is dismayed. In the end her dreams have vanished, though she never noticed they were slipping away...