Why do people get married to each other? The most common answer to this question is that these people love each other. Factually people may love each other without getting married. There are some people who believe in doom. They think that everything in our life is predefined, and it does not depend on people. As in any event in human life, marriage is also considered to be doomed. There is something predefined that makes people meet each other, fall in love, and get married. The article The Girls in Their Summer Dresses testifies to the fact that marriage is doomed.
This story is about the couple Frances and Michael who go for a walk together along Eighth Street. It is an ordinary married couple who decides to spend together their day off. The most interesting is the conversation between them. Michael’s behavior wounds Frances’ feelings. She notices how he looks at the other beautiful women. The most offensive for her is his kind of look as far as it resembles their first meeting and Michael’s first look at Frances. Frances like any woman wants to be the only one in her husband’s life. She wants to be the only object of fascination. Michael explains that there is nothing criminal in his behavior as far as he has eyes, and he fascinates the world surrounding him including all pretty women.
Factually, Frances understands that Michael likes a lot of women, but he has not betrayed Frances for all the time they have been living together. If he likes a lot of women, why has he chosen Frances to be his wife among all other women? The reason for this choice may be his love for Frances but at the end of the story, the reader may understand that Michael is not sure about his feelings and maybe there will be the day when he lives Frances. Michael says these words in such a way that it seems that nothing depends on him. It is a well-known fact that our feelings do not depend on us. So, who decides who we fall in love with? Why do people who have lived for a long time together realize that their feelings disappear? The only reasonable answer is that all these events including marriage are doomed. Nobody knows how long this or that couple lives together or they get married or not. The most interesting fact is that Michael himself cannot answer the question concerning his life. At the end of the story, the reader understands that Michael treats his wife in the same way as many other pretty women so he might have got married to any of them, but he has chosen Frances. It may even seem that it was not he who decided to get married to Frances it was predefined. The further life of this couple is predefined too but neither Frances nor Michael knows what happens in the future.
From the above said we may conclude that one of the main ideas of The Girls in Their Summer Dresses is that the marriage is doomed, and it does not depend on us who our husband or wife is. Although, it seems that we make our own choices these choices are caused by our feelings that are impossible to control or predict.
Work cited
Shaw, Irwin. “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses.” The New Yorker, Feb. 4. 1939 issue, p. 17, Web.