Weekend

In the short story “weekend” by Ann Beattie, there is one main central conflict between the main characters of Lenore and George. This conflict arises from that fact that George and Lenore have a child together, live in the same house, yet they have no apparent relationship. George is always bringing back women to the house in front of Lenore and she hides how it hurts her deep down. George’s character is portrayed as an alcoholic older man who does not seem to care too much about anything that is going on around him. While Lenore is shown to be a “simple” woman who just lets George walk all over her by showing up with younger girls and who rarely shows emotion. Although Lenore is not as simple as she leads on to George, she has a lot of emotion buried inside of her that she does not always show, and her character is a lot more complex after a second glance.

This short story is told in the Third person limited omniscient point of view through eyes of Lenore. This point of view is significant in uncovering the complexities of Lenore’s character. If it were told through the eyes of George, the reader would then believe Lenore to be actually a “simple” woman. However because it is told through Lenore we understand how she is truly feeling about this situation; “Lenore feels that she is like Julie: Julie’s face doesn’t betray emotion, even when she is interested, even when she deeply cares.” (Beattie 37) This lets the reader know that Lenore does care what is going on with George and Sarah and all of the other girls he brings home. That even though she does not show it or talk about it out loud. That she deeply cares what is going on and does not appreciate how George is acting in front of her.

The fact that the story is told through the eyes of Lenore also leaves the reader to wonder what is really going on between George and Sarah behind the scenes. For instance when George and Sarah go on a walk, we have no idea what went on during the walk, where they actually went and the feelings they truly shared for one another. This leads to what Wolfgang Iser would call “illusion,” it leads to an imaginary world the reader is left to create for themselves. This illusion leads to more reality for the reader and lets the reader have more control over the story; therefore becoming more involved.

Some of the dialogue in the story is also very helpful on getting insight on how Lenore is feeling. “ �Maybe they took shelter under a tree,’ she says. �Maybe they’re screwing. How should I know?’” (Beattie 41) This is one of the few times that Lenore lets out even a little emotion. Julie now can see that this relationship between George and Sarah bothers her and even hurts her. This was quite the awkward situation for Julie, and now it has become even more awkward because Julie now knows for sure that Lenore is not fine with them being there. Julie almost kind of feels unwelcome after their conversation. This dialogue also shows us how Lenore does care about what is going on and how she is almost dying to get it out and tell someone. How this is almost eating away at her inside. Even though she is actually annoyed by what is going on, she will continue to just sit back and take it.

Even after this weekend I feel the relationship between Lenore and George will remain the same and Lenore will continue to bite her tongue when it comes to George’s visitors. I feel this way because even after all of these visitors have come and gone, Lenore remains the same. Even though she is unhappy with these visitors and her and George’s relationship, she almost does not have the guts to stand up and say anything. She also probably feels she has no right to be upset, because of the fact that there is truly no relationship going on and