The Failures of Mr. and Mrs. ElliotThis cynical look at a less than ideal marriage keeps the reader at arm's length. The first sentence surprises with its baldness "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot tried very hard to have a baby" and the second sentence destroys any illusion that the Elliots are enjoying this by stating: "They tried as often as Mrs. Elliot could support". "(Hemingway 85). The second paragraph uses a long and strangely convoluted sentence to describe their courtship and subsequent marriage. It is not until the third paragraph that either is referred to by a first name, then the career of young Mr. Hubert Elliot is discussed. Mrs. Elliot's age has already been revealed, she is forty years old, and now Hubert's age is twenty-five. This age disparity is explained by. the fact that Hubert kept himself “pure in order to be able to provide his wife with the same purity of mind and body that he expected from her” (85) is what girls his age make fun of. which endears him to his friend from the tea room Cornelia She is also quite pure and they are delighted to have found each other, even if his mother cries because of their marriage. 'she heard they were going to live abroad' (86). Perhaps she is relieved that the newlyweds are out of reach of the wagging tongues of neighbors and friends. The happy couple spends a lot of time kissing and congratulating each other for remaining pure. Apparently, marriage was not in Hubert's plans, he cannot even “remember when it was decided that they were going to get married” (86). But they marry and the wedding night proves disappointing, the impression being that two such pure souls do not know how to make love. A...... middle of paper...... friends of hers, focusing instead on making this baby and capturing Hubert's poetry. There is also a tendency to accept at face value certain things that might arouse suspicion in a more thoughtful (or less desperate) person. “Hubert explained to him that he had learned this way of kissing one day when he heard a guy tell a story” (86). It might be easy to feel sympathy for such deluded people, creating their own traps and convincing themselves that they are so happy. But the slightly sarcastic side of the story, combined with the distance maintained throughout, rather helps to encourage contempt. By the end of the story, it's easy to view the Elliots as having made their bed. All they will have to do is sleep there. Works Cited Hemingway, Ernest. "Mr. and Mrs. Eliot." The news. New York: Scribner Pocket Fiction, 1995.