Isolation In The Painted Door

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In Ross’ short stories “The Painted Door” and “One’s a Heifer” the protagonists generate tear down in their personal lives by their isolation. In particular, In “The Painted Door” Ann is extremely lonely and isolated from her husband, John, and in the setting. Ann is dismal with her marriage and thinks that John does not spend enough time with her. He is constantly working so that he can buy Ann whatever she desires and John believes this is what makes her delighted. All Ann wishes to do is go out and have fun, but John dissimilarly is not fond of it. Ann complains about feeling avoided and segregated in her marriage: “Seven years a farmer’s wife - it’s time I [am] used to staying home alone” (Ross 289). Evidently Ann is trying to put pity on John for leaving by saying she …show more content…
She is trying to get John to feel guilty and make him stay with her during the terrible storm. John’s absence leaves Ann to continually over think her love for him. In addition, Ann is isolated physically by her location. Her and John live in the prairies, where houses are separated by large fields and hills. This means other than the people in your household, you are miles away from your neighbour or other people in the prairies. This makes Ann lonely when John goes to work, since he is the only person he talks to. Ann is isolated by the prairies that she lives in: “Even the distant farmsteads she [can] see [serves] only to intensify a sense of isolation” (Ross 289). Clearly, Ann is left to feel alienated in the setting and when she looks outside it only intensifies her sense of remoteness. This shows how Ann experiences isolation physically and emotionally in the story “The Painted Door”.

Notably, in “One’s a Heifer” Vickers lives alone in his cabin and has been living alone for a while,
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