Critique de la Vie Quotidienne (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Donald Barthelme
- First Published: 1972
- Type of Plot: Domestic realism
- Time of Work: Probably the 1970's
- Setting: Probably New York City
- Principal Characters: The narrator, Wanda, The child
- Genres: Short fiction, Domestic realism, Satire
- Subjects: Family or family life, Parents and children, Sex or sexuality, Alienation, Alcoholism or alcoholics, Substance abuse, Fathers, City life, Separation
- Locales: New York, NY
The Story
This “critique of daily life” records the disintegration of the marriage of a young urban couple. The narrator, given to excessive drinking, retrospectively sketches a series of domestic clashes that highlight the nature of the conflicts between him and his wife, Wanda, and their unnamed child.
The narrator and his wife quarrel, sometimes violently and finally almost lethally, about various domestic matters, among them their child's behavior, a game of chess, the narrator's stinginess, and his abandonment of her. The father's relationship with the child is...
[The entire page is 1531 words long]
