A Brief Examination of "The Other Paris" by Mavis Gallant

Ringing with the same sarcastic attack on bourgeois America as Joan Didion's segment criticizing Las Vegas wedding chapels in her book Slouching Toward Bethlehem, Canadian writer Mavis Gallant's "The Other Paris" is a humorous---and at times poignant---criticism of the sterile concepts of love and marriage prevalent during the 1950's. Through characterization and narrative voice (colored by various literary devices, including clever diction, hyperbole, sarcasm, irony, choice of detail, and metaphor), Gallant expresses her disapproval of and, perhaps, even disgust for the bland form of marriage common during the early era and America's failure in challenging it.