Kim, Jusung / Page 40 / 2017 Summer Session Prose & Paragraphs

Question: What do you think of the old judge?

The old judge has some insight about marriage in general. He tells the Ethiopian woman that maintaining marriage will be possible if she has determination to have patience and courage to resolve the problem along with her husband. The courage that the woman showed against the lion was respectable. However, I think it is a one-time effort, and is different from what she really needs to resolve the problem. Things you can do one time, and things you can do every day are totally different. For example, a worker in a factory would work hard for fourteen hours a day, which would give him direct compensation that day. However, he won't be willing to work five hours a day for three days streak for the same payment because it demands for more patience and efforts. Likewise, what the Ethiopian wife needs to do to solve the problem is to have patience and courage every day in the matters like socks laying on the floor, a bed not made in the morning, etc. This sort of endurance would leave her some emotional stress and like many a little makes a mickle, she will finally be exhausted and find herself stuck in the same problem again.

This is the reason why the judge's remedy cannot be an effective and ultimate cure of her problem. If he really was a wise man, he should have suggested a more direct method to solve her matters. For example, he could suggest a way to communicate, or make a rule of the family for them so that there would not be quarrels anymore. Moreover, maybe separating could be an answer. Not every couple that get divorced do not love each other, and many of them do. It is mostly the personality, or the financial problems that is always causing the problem. If so, separating may possibly be the healthiest ending of their marriage, even though it sounds sad. Therefore, I think the judge did not bring up the wisest remedy to the problem of the wife. Patience does not mean the resolution of a problem, but only an escape from it. If he was wise, I think he should have brought up a more practical and problem-solving cure in my opinion.

 

E-1: I think the Ethiopian wife loves more deeply. Esther killed Laurence. Esther loved him but she somehow idolized and 'worshiped' him. It may be a metaphorical expression but it sounds to me that her love is more of a crush than love. I understand that a crush can be a love, but when we compare that of Ethiopian wife and hers, the difference is clear. When a love is deep enough, the lover can sacrifice oneself for the sake of his/her lover.

E-2: I disagree of the idea that sees women or men in general can love strongly than the other gender. I think they are both capable of loving each other with equal intensity, but I think the way they express is the difference. Women in general tend to have more ability to express themselves than men. For example, I have seen some cases when a man is too shy, or blunt to express how he feels deep in his heart when a woman is the opposite.

E-3: It may have ended happily, but according to how Laurence reacted to Father Paul, he was not a determinative or courageous man that could go through the obstacles that they may face as a couple in that time. Back then in nineteenth century, there was a lot of prejudices and discriminations overflooding the societies in general and it was not thought to be wrong. Because of Laurence's personality, and the feature of that phase of the time, I think their ending would not be a happy ending even though Esther was a conative woman.