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Dramatic Irony
Part 2, Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Origin Story:
Part 2, Chapter 7 is a flashback to Marie's childhood and the way she met Frank:
Marie’s father, Albert Tovesky, was one of the more intelligent Bohemians who came West in the early seventies. He settled in Omaha and became a leader and adviser among his people there. Marie was his youngest child, by a second wife, and was the apple of his eye. She was barely sixteen, and was in the graduating class of the Omaha High School, when Frank Shabata arrived from the old country and set all the Bohemian girls in a flutter.
In the previous chapter, Frank was rude to Marie's guests. Once the guests left Marie home alone with Frank, he turned his bad mood on her. Although he did not physically harm her, he "raged" at her for suggesting that he help fix the neighbors' fence. This flashback fills in the blanks of how Marie came to be involved in such an unhappy, controlling marriage. In the present, she and Frank do not seem well-suited to one another: Marie is joyful and kind, empathizing with the neighbor who almost cried the last time her hogs escaped through the broken fence. Frank, on the other hand, always seems to be in a sour mood.
The flashback reveals that Frank was once coveted by all the "Bohemian" (or Czech, as we would say today) girls in Omaha. The narrator goes on to describe how his "discontent" once seemed romantic to Marie and all her peers. Marie was the favorite daughter of one of the most important men in town, and Frank was the new man in town who everyone wanted to marry. When they got together, they were something of a power couple—or at least, that's how it would have appeared from the outside.
The image of a young Frank and Marie as the outwardly perfect couple helps explain how Marie ended up in the bad situation she is in. She was very young when they met, and she was seduced by this image of perfection and by the mystery of Frank's "romantic discontent". These mood swings turned more dangerous once Marie was living in close quarters with him, and now she must navigate his rage on practically a daily basis. From a modern perspective, Frank is primarily responsible for this bad situation. But while the novel uses the flashback to explain how Marie ended up in a bad marriage, it is nonetheless critical of her behavior as well. In the flashback, Marie's father warns her that Frank is a "stuffed shirt." She refuses to listen. Marie's tragic flaw seems to be that she gets caught up in her own excitement and fails to think through her decisions. The same impulsivity that leads her to marry Frank also leads her to cheat on him with Emil, a decision that costs her and Emil their lives.
Related Themes:
