I came up with the ideas in this post with Abbie, whose blog you can view here :)
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?
Synopsis:
Set in the 1980′s, Ralph and Marian are high school sweethearts that are engaged. One day Ralph comes home to see a giant gift in his house and assumes it’s for their house. He questions Marian about this who confirms it isn't for them and is instead a wedding gift for a female friend. Ralph recognises the name as a girl from their high school and insists he thought they had lost contact. She confirms this is true but that they have recently re-connected, and Ralph starts to get anxious. He is suspicious of Marian’s past relationship with this girl, and with the time period, it would be unacceptable in society. He starts to interrogate her about the gift and the friend until Marian starts to break and she admits to having a sexual relationship with this woman. The doorbell goes and it’s the bride to be.
Brief notes:
Set in the 80s
Exploration of sexuality and homophobia
Ralph & Marian are high school sweethearts who are now engaged
In her high school days ‘something’ happens at a party between Marian and a female friend
Ralph and Marian are devout Christians, making the situation direr.
Rumours started going around their school but were eventually forgotten.
Ralph is aware of these rumours, so as soon as he hears the woman's name he's instantly paranoid.
Unaware by Ralph, Marian and this female friend reconnected recently and have yet again become good friends.
Ralph has come home from work and he’s seen a fairly priced item(?) on the counter.
(?) unsure as to what the gift is going to be yet -- maybe Ralph and Marian aren't 'well off' so the fact shes bought an expensive present for her shocks him?
He consults his wife, thinking said item was theirs.
Marian says no, and that its a wedding gift.
Ralph is confused as to why she’s spent so much on a wedding gift, and questions whose wedding it is.
Marian tells him, and Ralph recognises the name of the woman as the girl from their high school
Remembering the rumours, he becomes increasingly concerned
His line of questioning gets more and more obnoxious as his paranoia grows
“[blank]? Is that the girl from our high school?” -> “Do you even know what they said about you back then?”
In the following paragraph, I briefly discuss sexual identity and stereotypes associated with the bisexual community. This is to provide an insight into some of the changes that we made.
In our piece, Marian is bisexual. As with a lot of people who identify as LGBTQ+, there are a lot of stereotypes associated with bisexuality that we're looking to avoid perpetuating. As a bisexual woman myself, I understand the importance of this. If Marian were to cheat on Ralph, whether that be with a man or a woman, we could be playing into a negative stereotype. One may argue that by this we are implying that members of this community do not cheat at all, but this is not the case. Our concern is different; for a group that’s frequently misrepresented and often hardly represented at all, it’s important to be cautious of the things that we insinuate in regards to this. Additionally, I personally feel that having Marian cheat on Ralph isn't really needed with our narrative. The elements in Raymond Carver's short story that I've taken a liking to is the depth of Marian's confession to Ralph, and how the truth slowly comes out.
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