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Daphne Merkin's Analysis: Single Life

696 Words3 Pages

A former, Orson Welles once said, “We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone only through our love and friendship can create the illusion for a moment that were not alone” (Orson Welles). Daphne Merkin, from the story “Can singles live happily ever after”, never made her peace with living the single life. Merkin uses personal experience, personal opinion to construct figurative language, and point of view of singles living alone. Being single or "going solo" has advantages and disadvantages that affect the life of an individual in different ways. Merkin is forty years old and takes a personal look at her now single life. The author is starting to analyze the good and bad aspects of being single in the U.S. because she has been single most of her adult life and is expressing some unsettling feelings that leave her wondering, …show more content…

In the story, Merkin uses personal experience to convey the aspects of figurative language. Figurative language means when an author uses expressions with a different meaning then the original interpretation. The author utilizes the element, metaphor to compare singles. Merkin states, “these days living alone often seems closer to as sentence of solitary confinement” (Merkin). The author is comparing being alone to being in jail. Merkin says it best, being alone means no physical connection or sexual healing with another person (Merkin). Merkin says, “I married in a state of great ambivalence at 34, became a mother at 35, and by 40 was on my own again, sharing custody of my daughter with my ex-husband (Merkin).” Merkin wondered if she overdramatized her reality of being lonely versus being in a compromising unhappy relationship. Although

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