See What Stress Can Do.

I choose to write a response to Lilia Momple's "Stress". First of all I think it is very interesting that the main female character doesn't have a name. She is referred to throughout the entire short story as the "Major General's Lover." She is the mistress of a married man that has a wife, children and a whole other family. She doesn't seem to have a sense of herself at all. She lives in a house he pays for, her only interaction with people is when he cheats on his wife and for the most part she seems to be trapped in the apartment. Also even though she doesn't really go any where she is happiest after she puts on her best form fitting dress and tons of makeup. She gets angry only when the school teacher won't acknowledge her beauty. So her only sense of worth is from objects, where she lives and her beauty. As a character we don't really know who she is and she doesn't seem to know who she is. She is just trapped in this apartment in the same environment with the same kids on the streets. Her only window and escape from her non existent life is watching the school teacher from her window each Saturday.

Similar to the major-general's lover the school teacher is trapped. He is trapped in his hard life, in poverty and trying to feed and shelter all of the people in his house that he is responsible for. Before I got to the end I felt an extreme sense of sympathy for this character. He used to love teaching, but now because of the conditions around him he is too exhausted to teach and the kids don't want to learn anyways. He doesn't seem to have any friends because times are too hard to buy beer and there isn't much time anyways for himself. It was ridiculous that the major-general's lover would be so observed with herself that after all this struggle she wanted the teacher to look at her. At the end of the novel, while killing your wife is obviously not excusable, his life seemed to close in around him. In the same, yet very different ways he is trapped in a never ending situation, just like the major-general's lover.

I especially enjoyed the title of this short story, "stress". I was expecting something very different from the original title. I am sure at this time of year when someone hears the word stress the immediately think of all the exams and papers they have to do in a very short amount of time. And to a much lesser extent feel the same way as the school teacher, every day the stress of just getting though it all becomes greater and greater. Not that anyone of us is planning on strangling someone because of it.