123 School Work

Critical Analysis: The Resplendent Quetzal

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  "The Resplendent Quetzal" a short story from Margaret Atwood's Dancing Girls, portrays a married couple, Sarah and Edward, whose marriage has become dysfunctional since their child's death at birth. The death of a child can put extreme pressures on a couple. If neither parent is able to get over such a tragic incident then the unresolved feelings and issues can lead to a relationship that is bound to fail.
  The first hint of trouble in this couple's marriage is when Sarah talks about her husband's many hobbies, or as she puts it, obsessions. You get the feeling that the wife resents the fact that her husband spends all of his time on his obsessions. "At first Edward's obsessions had fascinated herbut now they merely made her tiredShe herself, she thought, had once been of his obsessions" (154). After one reads this you might believe that the wife merely wants her husband to pay more attention to her or spend more time with her, however there is a feeling that there is much more to this issue and that Sarah's resentment of her husband appears to run on a much deeper level. The death of their child has a deep emotional affect on Sarah, but the fact that Edward was not present when the baby dies, has a longer lasting negative affect on the marriage. The wife expresses this when she says, "When she no longer had the child inside her he had lost interest, he had deserted her. This she realized was what she resented most about him...