Alienation in The Painted Door
The feelings of alienation and loneliness are bitter and harsh. They can drive a person crazy. People have been known to go to great lengths to abolish these feelings. In many cases these attempts have terrible results. Such is the case in various fictional stories where the protagonists try to overcome emotion and are very unsuccessful. In Sinclair Ross' "The Painted Door" and D. H. Lawrence's "The Rocking Horse Winner" the protagonists combat feelings of alienation and turn to drastic measures which bare disastrous results. Both the protagonists in "The Painted Door" and in "The Rocking Horse Winner" feel very alone in this world and experience feelings of alienation. In "The Painted Door" the protagonist Ann is a character who wants more out of life. She is isolated in her home in the middle of no where. She does not realize her husband's great compassion for her and instead feels alienated by him and their lifestyle. "Plenty to eat- plenty of wood to keep me warm- what more could a women ask for" (Ross 288). Ann wants more from her husband John but he does not realize it. "Pay no attention to me. Seven years a farmers wife- it's time I was used to staying alone" (289). Ann clearly feels very alienated and alone. When John m
Ann has an affair and Paul drives himself mad trying to be lucky; however neither of them ends up feeling fulfilled. In "The Painted Door" Ann is very bored. Once Paul realizes that if he vigorously rides the rocking horse it will give him the winner of the race, he begins winning a lot of money. This is the first sign of Ann's infatuation with Steven showing how much Ann wants something more out of life and for her feelings of loneliness to vanish. Lawrence's "The Rocking Horse Winner" experience deep feelings of loneliness and turn to extreme behaviors which ultimately result in the destruction of their lives. The things they do as a result of feeling so alienated ultimately ruin their lives. It does not take long in reading Ross' "The Painted Door" and Lawrence's "The Rocking Horse Winner" to realize the similarities between Ann and Paul. Because Paul rides the rocking horse so vigorously, he becomes very ill and is on his death bed. Even after Paul dies "his mother sat, feeling her heart had gone, turned actually into a stone" (247).
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