Thesis Statement
“Relationships are complex interactions that need nurturing, protecting, and consistency; it is not all about first encounters”
Discussion
The thesis statement says it all; that in real life relationships are complex interactions that need nurturing, protecting, and consistency. The literary work that was chosen to be discussed for this paper was Katherine Mansfield’s short story entitled Something Childish but Very Natural. For starters, it was a literary piece published in 1914 about two characters who met each other in a train station namely Henry and Edna.
Now, for readers who have not read the book, I am not going to summarize the events that happened. I would instead focus on discussing my personal interpretation. This may be a romantic story for some but on a personal level, I see it as the author’s way of discussing how two people, at least at that point in time, meet. In the story, it can be recalled that Henry and Edna met each other in a train station by accident. What Henry loved doing, as portrayed in the story, was to read books. His life, however, was forever changed when he naturally met Edna in a train carriage. The plot thickened when they both talked and decided to meet each other at the same place every evening. They did what they said they would do and eventually, in just a snap, their friendship started. It grew until they became comfortable with each other.
What makes me feel personally connected to the story is the fact that that I think that we value people who we meet naturally, by accident, than those who we meet just because we had to. Henry and Edna presumably had their own circle of friends; no one really knows. Maybe Edna was on her way to visit a family or relative when she accidentally met Henry but still they met in a very natural way and that what served as the spark of their friendship. It is the spontaneity of their encounter that made me hooked to their story. It is not like one could still meet people like that (in that way) these days; meeting a stranger in a train station or any public place, engaging in a small talk and letting the stranger to stranger relationship grow bigger from there, to something as big and as complex as the relationship between Henry and Edna.
This is no me being a hopeless romantic or a bitter loveless person; this is me being amused by how we price in the value of a person based on how we met them. In my experience, I do not see how people could associate themselves with other people who they do not have a common interest with. Unfortunately, they would not be able to share those interests without talking. So, this means that it (friendship or romance) all starts with that simple encounter. The quality of that encounter, it appears, is what is going to determine the outcome of the relationship. In Henry and Edna’s case, their encounter was perfect. It was as if everything was laid out perfectly for them to meet, talk, and then continue meeting and talking until they finally fell in love with each other.
Relationships, however, are much more complex than that, I believe. There are bound to be bumps along the way. Relationships are as fragile as a budding human life. It needs protection from all sorts of destructive agents out there. This can easily be proven by the short story that represented Henry and Edna’s weeks or probably months’ long relationship.
They were both young and most likely they were not yet mature enough to handle romantic relationships but let us base our theories and assumptions on what actually happened. Just when they thought that everything will be fine, the unthinkable happened. When they went to a concert, Edna appeared to be somewhat distant to Henry, as if she was thinking about something really deep; or to the paranoid’s mind, as if she did not want to continue seeing Henry anymore.
This actually happens in real life; however, it is important to note that it can happen to either the male or female in the heterosexual relationship. The real question, however, would be what held them back? To put it simply, it was their complete cluelessness on what to do next that held them back. They both knew that they love each other although they were too young and not courageous enough to admit it. Something in their subconscious perhaps made them feel that they could not go on chasing each other in train stations and going to concerts forever. At some point, the fire that grew in them when they met each other and fell in love at first sight in that train station would vanish, it was just a matter of when.
Maybe this was what struck Edna. It was a constant battle for both of them. By the end of that ordeal, they decided some things; that they wanted to be with each other forever and start a family perhaps in the future. The story in the book was much more complex than this, of course. It was the uncertainty in the story that made me linger and finish it until the end.
Tragedies happen, even in real life. Tragedy does not always pertain to death or injury; it can pertain to any untoward event. In the case of Henry and Edna’s story, it’s their relationship’s breaking apart that served as their tragedy. There he was one day playing around a train station and suddenly she met Edna, probably who she thought would be the woman of her life. Suddenly, in just a matter of time, Edna is gone.
It is worth noting that the story’s ending is an ambiguous one because what it all shows is a picture of Henry receiving a telegram from Edna and it appeared that whatever was in that telegram broke them—so the most logical explanation would be that she simply broke up with him because of whatever convenient reason; or n this case the numerous childish (although natural) issues that they had. Either way, it was a tragedy. In the book, it said “the garden became full of shadows, they span a web of darkness over the cottage and the trees and Henry and the telegram, but Henry did not move” .
What I like to point out here is that relationships, just like people, can come and go . It is not the amount of time that one has spent with the other those matters, that would measure the quality and integrity of their relationship, it is the affection that has developed towards the other person and vice versa. In Henry and Edna’s case, however, the only theory that I have why this tragedy happened between them is because they were too childish to continue whatever was going on between them. Edna was too afraid to let go of her innocence for Henry. Henry, on the other hand, was too young to man up and care for Edna. It was the right love at the wrong time.
In real life, it can be all the same. The story of Henry and Edna might be simple but that is exactly the way how it goes in real life. You meet one person, you talk to them, and you become friends. Depending on how things play out, it may develop into a romantic relationship. One important takeaway from what happened in the story, however, is that tragedy happens and just like accidents, they usually happen when you least expect them. A friendship or any relationship for that matter can take weeks, months, or even years to build and ironically, it only takes an instant for it to be finished. I guess this is what is unacceptable about establishing relationships after all. It requires hard work, guts, and effort to establish but it can easily be destroyed in a matter of minutes—see what happened to Henry.
Conclusions
So, I want to inform everyone reading this that I am not an expert in relationships. Whatever things I wrote here are simply the product of my personal observation and reflection about Henry and Edna’s story. To wrap it all up, however, I guess it is pretty clear that relationships are complex interactions that need nurturing, protecting, and consistency; it is not all about first encounters. Rather, it is how one would manage and play the succeeding encounters.
Works Cited
Mansfield, K. "Something Childish But Very Natural." Katherine Mansfied Society (1914): 01-15. Print.
Yaan, A. "The 4 Most Important Things I ever Learned About Relationships." Beyond the Dream (2013): http://beyondthedream.co.uk/2013/07/28/the-4-most-important-things-i-ever-learned-about-relationships/. 01. Web.
