Learning to Fall by Ann Beattie
"Learning to Fall" by Ann Beattie is a short story that explores themes of love, loss, and acceptance through the lens of its main character, Ruth. As a single mother, Ruth navigates the complexities of her past, including the departure of her husband and the challenges of raising her son, Andrew, who has faced difficulties since birth. The narrative captures Ruth's journey of "learning to fall," both in a literal sense through dance classes and figuratively as she grapples with emotional vulnerability and the acceptance of life's inevitable changes.
The story also features a narrator who reflects on her own relationship with a man named Ray, drawing parallels between her life and Ruth's. Their interactions highlight a sense of tenderness and the potential for connection amidst personal struggles. In contrast, the story "The Burning House," which is part of the same collection, presents a different dynamic through the character of Frank. His perspective on marriage and masculinity adds a layer of complexity, illustrating the tensions within intimate relationships. Overall, Beattie's work invites readers to contemplate the nuances of human connections and the grace that can emerge from embracing life's uncertainties.
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Learning to Fall by Ann Beattie
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1979 (collected in The Burning House, 1982)
Type of work: Short story
The Work
Characters in two of the short stories in The Burning House represent definitive types that appear in Beattie’s novels. Ruth in “Learning to Fall,” the collection’s first story, is a loving, nurturing, single parent and friend. She is “learning to fall”—literally, in a dance class, but figuratively as well—to accept the inevitable. Her husband left her while she was pregnant, and her lover admires her but does not want any of the responsibility of Ruth, whose son, Andrew, was damaged in the process of being born.
The narrator of the story, a friend of Ruth, has a sometime lover, Ray, who visits with Andrew and the narrator, showing great gentleness to the two; they regularly take the excursion to New York so that Ruth can entertain her lover in Westport. In a restaurant with Andrew and the narrator, Ray patiently tries to help Andrew locate his gloves. When all three leave the restaurant to return to the street, the narrator sees herself with Ray and Andrew and imagines the possibility of the inevitable relationship. Perhaps she is falling. She decides that at least she can be like her friend Ruth and “aim for grace.”
In “The Burning House,” the title story of the collection in which “Learning to Fall” appears, there is a character who may be called a second definitive type. Frank behaves in a way that suggests to the narrator, his wife, that her frustrating marriage is deteriorating. Frank has made the important decisions: He has even “chosen the house,” and the house is burning. In the final scene, with the couple in bed, Frank delivers to his wife what some critics have recognized as the ultimate insult—his conception of the difference between the sexes:
Men think they’re Spiderman and Buck Rogers and Superman. You know what we all feel inside that you don’t feel? That we’re going to the stars. . . . I’m looking down on all this from space. . . . I’m already gone.
Bibliography
Centola, Steven R. “An Interview with Ann Beattie.” Contemporary Literature 31 (Winter, 1990): 405-422.
Friedrich, Otto. “Beattieland.” Time 135 (January 22, 1990): 68.
Hill, Robert W., and Jane Hill. “Ann Beattie.” Five Points 1 (Spring/Summer, 1997): 26-60.
McCaffery, Larry, and Sinda Gregory. “A Conversation with Ann Beattie.” Literary Review 27 (Winter, 1984): 165-177.
Montresor, Jaye Berman, ed. The Critical Response to Ann Beattie. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993.
Murphy, Christina. Ann Beattie. Boston: Twayne, 1986.
Plath, James. “Counternarrative: An Interview with Ann Beattie.” Michigan Quarterly Review 32 (Summer, 1993): 359-379.
Schneiderman, Leo. “Ann Beattie: Emotional Loss and Strategies of Reparation.” American Journal of Psychoanalysis 53 (December, 1993): 317-333.
Young, Michael W., and Troy Thibodeaux. “Ann Beattie.” In A Reader’s Companion to the Short Story in English, edited by Erin Fallon, R. C. Feddersen, James Kurtzleben, Maurice A. Lee, Susan Rochette-Crawley, and Mary Rohrberger. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001.