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In the short story Birthday Party by author Katharine Brush, a man and

woman go out to dinner for his birthday. The wife surprises her husband with a small
birthday cake and has the restaurant staff sing to him which causes the husband to
become hotly embarrassed. The author uses literary devices to change a
seemingly good act and turning it into a selfish act. Brush paints a picture of
discontent and lifelessness through the use of symbolism and point of view.
Brush illustrates the malcontent that was caused by the birthday cake,
through symbolism. The birthday cake has one solitary candle signifying the
loneliness he feels in his marriage. He feels isolated and cut off from the world as
well as his wife. At this dinner his wife was wearing her best hat with a gay big
brim. This hat represents her, it is ostentatious and vapid. She doesnt get him the
cake for him; she gets the cake to make herself feel as if she did something good.
Her hat blocks her vision just as her narcissism blocks her knowing that her
husband of many years hates big surprises. Brushs use of symbolism parallels her
characters attributes and her purpose of displaying the hopelessness in marriages
after World War II and how the men feel lost which is reminiscent of all post-war
generations.
Although the story seems as though it is in third person point of view at first,
the author then clarifies that the story is actually being told in a first person point of
view. Through this use of first person point of view that seems like third person,
Brush tries to render a portrait of an impartial observer, however, in actuality the
narrator is biased and possibly misinformed and dramatizing. Not only would the
narrator be far away from the couple, he/she is also with someone else eating
dinner, distracting and distorting the image of their interactions. The restaurant that
was described as little and narrow has a head waiter and a violin-and-piano
orchestra, which would normally be indicative of a large restaurant. Brush alters the
point of view by changing it to second person in which the narrator tries to influence
the reader by impressing a thought of Oh, now, dont be like that! when thinking
of the husbands embarrassment and subsequent scolding of his wife. Katharine
Brush depicts the married couple in this way to confuse and reverse the way the
reader thinks about this married couples relationship and of all relationships
following WWII.
Throughout the short story Birthday Party author Katharine Brush sketches
a story of a married couple but uses symbolism, a changing point of view, and an
unreliable narrator to invert the feelings behind the representation of husband and
wife. Katharine Brush distorts the proportions of the story which allows her to
achieve her goal of muddling the message of the feeling of isolation from men after
WWII and the ignorance and vanity of women at the time.

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