In the contemporary era of heightened social connectivity, yet widespread seclusion, we scour our lives for an interpersonal bond that would quench our thirst for emotional growth within positive relationships. However, as domestic violence rampages like a hurricane, the prospects of our dogmatic attempt at relational fulfillment, marriage, may be bleaker than we had once suspected. Rather, we may need to strive for alternative social constructs, in order to glean the benefits we had once imagined marriage to provide: emotional and physical interdependence and growth. By exploring the catastrophic repercussions of Stanley’s abuse of Stella in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, juxtaposing their tragic relationship with the emotional support and familial ambience of Tim’s platoon in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, readers may discover that the potential prosperity of marriage may often be found in alternative relationships, and likewise, it may even be absent in matrimony altogether.
