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Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Rope” and Margaret Atwood’s “The Resplendent Quetzal” have a lot of similarities. These two short stories are based on couples, and the basis of the problem in the two stories seems to be that they do not have children. In “The Resplendent Quetzal” we know that they lost their child at birth. While in “The Rope” we are lost as to the “how” or “why” they do not have children. The two stories show how these couples cope with their issues instead of trying to address it. In “The Rope”, the author does not use “he said” or “she said”, the narrative just goes straight into the conversation or thoughts of the character. The third person narrative technique does not give us insight into the psyche of the characters. It makes it seem like we are watching the incident happen. Each paragraph recounts the dialogue of both static individuals indirectly, without punctuation, in past tense, as if the tale were being told later by an overhearing neighbor. Each paragraph moves, not to a new speaker, but to a new grievance that both parties address; neither ever truly hears the other, although we do. We perceive a map not only of the argument but also of the frustrations that make up the marriage. We get the emotional standpoint of both characters. The story starts using the wife’s point of view who seems to have hysteria. There is no description of her, we do not know her name or where they are. There is also no name or description of the husband. The husband forgot to buy her coffee but he buys a rope. Then she begins to argue with him over it. She takes it personally and interprets his actions as being tangible proof of his indifference toward her. We know she is arguing about the rope but deep down she seems to have problems that she doesn’t know how to address. Sometimes when people have issues they can’t address they cope with it by ignoring it and then not being able to handle it, the anger from that issue tends to flow into other conversations or actions of the person. They argue back and forth about little things. She just picks fight all over the place without logic. This seems to be the case with the wife. Every argument they have leads back to the rope. The husband, on the other hand, is depicted as having admirable intentions, but no comprehension of her point of view and, as a result, fails to “keep her company, to share her fears, to value her difficulty, and to remember her desire”. He views his role as a traditional breadwinner, bringing home the “regular money”. He does not see the “house” as work; therefore, he is unable to sympathize with his wife when she feels “overwhelmed” by it. When the wife reminds her husband that housekeeping “was no more her work than it was his”, his response is intended to “put her in her place” and “point out her ‘real’ role”. In his mind the man explains his wife’s actions as “silly” or “raving,” that she is ruled by her emotions and not by ration. His own actions seem justified in response to her “hysteria”. “Rope” deliberately avoids imagery and involved connotation; it's remarkably straightforward in its naturalistic details, and it stays on the porch, in the argument. We are free to shape out the couple's past and future for ourselves, but Porter's theme, love destroyed by miscommunication, is clear. The couple lighten up “he knew how she was” but are not enlightened; the marriage, although neither party will admit it, is at the end of its rope.
In the case of Sarah in “The Resplendent Quetzal” she seems to be able to handle herself and emotions quite better but the tension between them is obvious. She also doesn’t address the problem rather she copes with it by pulling away from Edward or more accurately pushing him away. When he tries to talk to her or explain anything to her she ignores him passively by changing the topic or she sends him away to look for a bird which she knows is his passion,. She is not aware that Edward has noticed her tricks since at least three years ago. Edward on the other hand who knows about this trick does not do anything about it. “For someone so devious she was often incredibly stupid” (238). Since he is aware of her “little trick”, why does he not call her out? He probably just goes after the bird to get away from her too. Sarah thinks he is dumb and he thinks she is stupid. They don’t seem to have any ounce of love or respect for each other left which could be because of the loss of their child or maybe they never really loved each other which begs the question why are they still together? After all, it seems they got married because she was pregnant. “He hadn’t thought of marrying Sarah at all, he’d never mentioned it because it had never occurred to him she would agree, until she told him she was pregnant” (238). Now that the reason for their marriage is gone, instead of separating they stay together, resenting each other. At the beginning of their relationship she pretended to be interested in his passions “and in fact she had been”, since she had been one of his passions before and now not anymore.
At the beginning of the story Sarah is sitting at the edge of a sacrificial well. This symbolizes the point at which they are in their relationship- the edge. They both think the worst of each other. But neither of them decides to call it quits on their relationship. Instead of facing reality of their relationship they rely on fantasies, imagining how their relationships would be without the other. Sarah imagines how her life would have been if he were dead “it wasn’t that she wished him dead, but she couldn’t imagine any other way for him to disappear” (240). She imagined how she would have done the trip differently, where she would have stayed, which type of fancy transport she would have taken. She has also though about cheating on him.
Edward on the other hand imagines himself as King Kong hurling Sarah into the sacrificial well. He would do “anything to shatter that imperturbable expression, bland and pale and plump and smug, like Flemish Madonna” (239). A Flemish Madonna which is a painting of the Virgin Mary in the style of sixteenth-century artist, in this story signifies perfection. Edward saw Sarah as thinking of herself as infallible. “Self-righteous, that’s what it was” (239).