Elmer Perez-Hernandez

Mr. Hackney
Rhetoric 101
13 November 2014
Title
Gender is, by itself, the largest split in human nature. This determines and classifies
almost everything ranging from what clothes you wear to what to what you say. Although very
different, one another bring stability when each role are fulfilled. A man requires a woman as
much as a man requires a woman. Stability seems to be the ultimate objective, the safe zone in
life. In F Scott Fitzgeralds short story An Alcoholic Case, the author incorporates tone and
conflict to suggest that each gender has a role in a relationship and requires each other for
stability.
The theme of An Alcoholic Case is alcoholism and its symptoms among its victims, but
at the base of the story is a simple nurse taking care of a man. In this situation both the nurse and
the patient need each other. The man needs her to stay sane from the effects of alcohol and she
needs him to fulfill that role of caretaking. The conflict in the story in the story is between the
man and alcohol as well as the man versus the women.

Works Cited
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. An Alcoholic Case. The Oxford Book of American Short Stories. Ed.
Joyce Carol Oates. New York:Oxford UP, 1992. 302-309. Print.
Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today. New York: Garland, 1999. Print.