The two stories both have two main characters. In ‘The Kiss’’ case, they are two young teenagers; the narrator, whose name is unknown, and Bill, the narrator’s crush, and, for ‘The Fury,’ the main characters are two older, married people; Mrs. Fletcher and Mr. Fletcher. The characters contrast and compare in many different ways, for example, to the reader, both the female characters seem very fickle, as we can tell when the narrator in ‘The Kiss’ says,
“…I walked quickly, obviously from him. I still don’t
know why,”
in comparison, Mrs. Fletcher does love her husband very much, however, she is in “silent fury” with him most of the time, and she doesn’t trust him. This may suggest that both the writhers of the stories are intending that, in relationships, the women are the unpredictable partners.
Both short stories base themselves around the relationships between the main characters, nevertheless, in ‘The Fury,’ the relationship is a very untrusting marriage, whereas, in ‘The Kiss,’ it’s more of a one-night-stand. ‘The Fury’ states that Mrs. Fletcher is
“a passionate woman who clung single-mindedly to what
was hers.”
This immediately brings the reader to thinking that maybe Mr. Fletcher tends to stray from his wife, therefore, she has to “defend her rights with vigor.” In contrast, the relationship between Bill and the narrator in ‘The Kiss’ is more like a crush, as, at first, Bill “didn’t choose” the narrator to be his dance partner, however, towards the end, they “kissed the night away.” Looking deeper into this story, I have come to think that maybe Bill was bored at the party, knew that the narrator was besotted with him, so that was why he went over to her in the fist place.
The opening paragraphs to the stories are quite similar. They both talk about a male from a female’s point of view. However, ‘The Kiss’ focuses more on the positive aspects of Bill, but ‘The Fury’ shows us how angry Mrs. Fletcher gets with her husband. The narrator in ‘The Kiss’ talks about how she “idolized” Bill, on the other hand, Mrs. Fletcher in ‘The Fury’ is watching her husband thinking that there were times when,
“…her husband thought more of his rabbits than
anything else in the world…”
The reader can tell that the narrator in ‘The Kiss’ is slightly happier then Mrs. Fletcher because of the way she then goes on to describing Bill’s “curly fair hair” and his clothes in an optimistic way, but Mrs. Fletcher carries on informing the reader that she thought that Mr. Fletcher loved his rabbits,
“more that meat and drink, more than tobacco and
comfort, more that her – the other woman.”
This quotation leaves the reader in suspense, thinking about what Mrs. Fletcher is talking about, and who this “other woman” is.
The language used in ‘The Fury’ contradicts that of ‘The Kiss.’ ‘The Fury’ shows more aggressive and harsh language, which show that there is a lot of hatred and suspicion between the two characters “…her lingering anger.” ‘The Kiss’ on the other hand includes more romantic and obsessive speech, as we can tell when the narrator’s friend, Anne, cries “he’s come,” and, in reply, the narrator breathes, “who? Bill?” From the two short words and the punctuation mark, the reader can tell that the narrator is truly in love and fanatical with Bill, as she cannot quite catch her breath enough to speak.
The images created in ‘The Fury,’ possess very violent feelings behind them. The way that, when Mrs. Fletcher thinks about her husband, the thoughts bring,
“unnecessary force to bear on the sharp knife
with which she sliced the potatoes for the pan,”
suggest that Mrs. Fletcher can be very short tempered. The images in our head are very evil and quite intimidating, which can be associated with red and fire. In contrast, ‘The Kiss’ associates the clothes of the characters with their personalities. The way that the narrator repeats the “green cord jacket” that Bill wears, could mean that during the time that this story was written, the jacket and that “curls [that] rippled over his head like waves,” were at that height of fashion, therefore, making Bill look cool and tough. In addition to this, “a strange man” is described as wearing
“ little round glasses and a pale blue tee-shirt,”
which brings the stereotypical reader to imagine that he is a school nerd, however, other people might see him as a clever and honest person.
I enjoyed both the stories, as they differed in many ways, yet they were very similar. I thought that the way that ‘The Kiss’ symbolized a person with his or her clothes was very effective as is a different and original way of describing characters, and what increased the tension in ‘The Fury’ was the twist at the end of the story, as you don’t really think about what Mrs. Fletcher does during the day.
Rebecca Fry 9.4
