Lack Of Perception In John Updike's Poker Night

Authors use complex characters to create the theme of understanding different perspectives so the reader can understand how a lack of perception can lead to damaged relationships.
John Updike used two characters in Poker Night to show how people’s actions affect others and how important it is to understand that concept. In the story, the narrator has just been diagnosed with cancer during his doctor's appointment. “I wanted to be sharing this with the wife but then they were counting on me to make six and a few hours couldn’t make much difference. Bad news keeps: Isn’t that what the old people used to say?” (Updike 2). Updike uses his characters to show how people are reluctant to tell others horrible news and use excuses to justify not telling

Towards the end of the book, the narrator finally told his wife about his cancer diagnosis. “While we were talking across the kitchen table there was a wall suddenly that I was on one side of and she was on the other, overweight and over fifty as she was, a middle-aged tired woman up after midnight in a powder blue bathrobe but with these terrible alive dark eyes, suddenly. I had handed her this terrible edge,” (Updike 5). Updike is trying to show how others’ actions have big consequences on other people. Something as big as a cancer diagnosis can have a serious effect on more than one person. While the narrator was trying to figure out how he was going to deal with his diagnosis, he didn’t think about how his wife would deal with it. Once he tells her, he realizes that she has so much more to figure out because now, she has to cope with

The village wanted Teofilo’s body sprinkled with holy water for good rain that season, not because of Christian beliefs. However, the priest changed his mind and sprinkled holy water over Teofilo’s body before he was buried. The priest did this to better understand his community and connect with them. The author is trying to show that sometimes one has to do things they don’t fully understand or relate to to connect with others and form good relationships with them. Even though the priest didn’t understand Teofilo’s burial, he still played a part in it to connect with the village. At the burial, the priest sprinkled holy water over Teofilo’s body. “He sprinkled the grave and the water disappeared almost before it touched the dim, cold sand; it reminded him of something—he tried to remember what it was, because he thought if he could remember he might understand this,” (Silko 5). Sometimes one has to change perspectives or their way of thinking to communicate effectively with others and build healthy relationships. For example, in a relationship, two people might have to look at the other’s point of view on the topic to effectively communicate and debate the