Revision of Reader Response Essay

Running head: THE CRANE WIFE

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THE CRANE WIFE

L Michelle Shaw

South College

8/18/2020

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ABSTRACT

CJ Hauser published a story in which she revealed the state of her relationship with her

fiancé. She exposed how she was being mistreated by her fiancé while still in the relationship,

being cheated and misled. Besides, she suspected that the relationship between her lover and her

friend was intimate and that she felt jealous of her friend when she became suspicious. At one

time, she narrated how they used to converse with her fiancé to understand the nature of their

relationship after their love had begun to make a U-turn. However, he would rubbish it off an

even made her feel stupid for thinking that he was in love with another person. It is after some

time that he confessed to cheating some years back. After learning how she was being cheated,

Hauser explained how she decided to settle for less (Hauser, 2019). This came after she has

begun to understand that the world had more significant problems than hers

“THE CRANE WIFE” REVIEW

Hauser was continuously forced to settle for less in her love life, and this behavior of

settling for less slowly becomes a part of her later life. She settles for less reassurance of love in

her marriage. She settles for less when her mother in law designs the piece she did not want. She

settles for less when her marriage proposal did not meet her expectations. During her research

trip, she also bet on 3 pigs, despite hoping for five, and here, again we see her settling for less,

way after she ended called off her wedding. This is because she believes women are not allowed

to feel entitled, to want more. However, this is a stereotype and in the current time all genders

are allowed equal rights. Everyone deserves happiness and deserves to be treated right at any one

time, and therefore Hauser should have accepted settling for less.

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The wedding cancellation resulted to a dilemma for Hauser. She felt that calling off the

wedding was a reason enough for her not to be happy in life, and the trip was a vacation to her.

She continues shopping while at the same time debating whether she was doing the right thing by

going on the trip right after she called off the wedding. In the end though, she chooses the trip,

and is left feeling guilty for the first moments into the trip. She called off the wedding because se

continuously felt deprived of her happiness, and time and again she was made to feel bad when

she asked for more. Cancelling the wedding is therefore no reason to for her to feel guilty about

the trip. Oppositely, she would be fulfilling the reason for cancelling the wedding. Finding

happiness and purpose in life. Everyone, women included, deserves to be appreciated and to feel

fulfilled and no one should be put in a position where they must choose being happy over any

other option, let alone a wedding.

Hauser uses the whooping crane to symbolize her life on two different occasions. She

uses the Japanese whooping crane feeble as a comparison for her life. The whooping crane was

in love, and since she wanted to be loved, and believed she would not be loved for being a bird,

she painfully altered her being. Each night she would pull out her feathers, so she appears worthy

before the man she loved. She gave up the beauty that comes with being a bird, for the love of a

man. Likewise, Hauser gave up her beautiful nature of needing reassurance, needing love, and

needing happiness. She gave up all these for man who did not flinch from his comfort zone to

see her for her. This she did despite out there being others who would love her for being herself,

without requiring her to change.

Hauser compares her happiness to that of a whooping crane, for like the whooping crane,

it is the small things that mattered for her wellbeing. The whooping crane required the flow of

the wind, the berries on the trees, all simple things, to survive. The whooping crane’s survival

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was dependent on not only concentrating on the whooping crane, but on the things that the bird

dependent on most. The simple things around her existence. Likewise, Hauser required to be

recognized, she needed recognition. She needed to feel worthy. She needed to feel loved without

fighting to be loved. But her fiancée did not see these things in her, but rather saw her as any

other person. Going on the trip let Hauser realize she made the right decision in calling off the

wedding.

When women want, they are termed as needy; but when men want, this is painted as a

positive characteristic (Hauser, 2019). From Hauser’s experience, women are not allowed to

publicly have desires and wants. She therefore struggles to contain what she wants from her

fiancée. Her character in her love life is therefore diminished to that of a submissive partner

whose opinions hardly count. For example, she feels that her love does not tell her “I love you”

enough, but when she brings it up, her partner diminishes the argument down to what he terms

logic and claims since he has said it about twice before, logic dictates that he still loves her and

he needs not remind her. While this is true logically, he is supposed to say “I love you” to her as

much as possible, and not reduce an argument of love to that of logic. Hauser was right in

needing to be reassured of love.

“The Crane Wife” is a Japanese story that is said to be expounded on the relationship

issues relating to women. CJ Hauser explains why she called off her wedding and reflects on

being afraid and not wanting to ruin herself. When she said, “What I learned to do, in my

relationship with my fiancé, was to survive on less” (Hauser, 2019) CJ Hauser hit a person in

many lives because of people who feel stuck with verbally abusive partners and cheaters.

Settling for less means accepting the outcome, learning from experience, and going back to the

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basics. By resolving for less, any person who has been in an abusive relationship finds peace,

knowing that there are more significant troubles in the world than setbacks in relationships.

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References:

Hauser, C., J. (2019, July 2019). The Crane Wife. The Paris Review. Retrieved on August 19,

2020 from: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/07/16/the-crane-wife/