AN APPRECIATION OF ''GETTING MARRIED''
In the short-story ‘Getting Married’ the author, A.A. Milne, contrasts the two characters of Ronald & Celia on their respective attitudes towards marriage. This contrast helps in a better understanding of their characters and singes the plot of the story with rich comedy. For the contrast to become more prominent, the author begins with some similarities between the two characters. Both Ronald & Celia are in love with each other, both of them want to get married & both of them face the ordeal of fixing the marriage day, furnishing the house & planning the honeymoon. So far for their similarity.
These fundamental points of similarities throw into high relief the contrast between the two characters. Ronald is a man who likes to be guided. He would love to sit back and let others work for him. When it comes to fixing the marriage day, he thought that Celia, his best man & his solicitor would arrange it for him. His intention in marrying Celia is that she would reply the correspondences for him & when it boils down to settling a honeymoon spot for them, he wanted that his father-in-law should write a letter in order to engage a resort for them. All these incidents under cut the narrator’s proud assertion, “Ronald is a man of powerful fibre” & contributes much to the humour in the story.
The narrator’s fiancée, Celia, is of a different make. She is lady who not only works herself, but also makes Ronald work. It is on her words that Ronald fixes the church & the date of marriage. It is she who makes him sit on the writing desk to write a letter for engaging a resort for the honeymoon, though the letter eventually is written by her. In fact, it is Celia who guides Ronald. She takes initiative of the furnishings & Ronald merely follows suit.
Once inside the shosp; that sells electric fittings, Celia does not give much importance to Ronald’s queer ideas. When Ronald suggested that they wanted a strong light for the hall so that they “are able to watch our guests carefully when they pass the umbrella-stand”, Celia simply waved aside his suggestion & pointed out that she wanted a hanging lantern. The same suave behaviour of Celia marked with an air of unimportance towards Ronald is again markedly visible in buying the mehagony chests of drawers. Celia quite sees through the hoaxes of the first shopkeeper, which Ronald cannot, and buys a chest from another shop on a far better bargain. Ronald’s clandestine payment to the first shopkeeper is, evidently, an utter loss.
It is this same fund of intelligence that enables Celia to virtually toy with Ronald in the ‘honeymoon’ section of the story. She simply irritates Ronald to write a letter for engaging a resort for their honeymoon. As Ronald waxes hesitant, she banters his male ego that makes him immediately rush to the writing desk. She said that she would ask her father to write thus: “I am writing to ask you if you will take care of him and see that he doesn’t do anything dangerous.” She plays with him about the honeymoon spot and when he is at his wits end she reveals the truth to his great relief: “I have written, Ronald.” Celia is the lady who puts her notions into reality by making Ronald work to those ends. Celia is the stronger character, inspite of Ronald’s assertion to the contrary. It is significant that the characters unfold themselves as the plot of the story progresses. Celia grows from strength to strength, planning, managing & dictating affairs as the character of Ronald subsides from strength to weakness. But there is no egoistic clash between the two characters: Ronald is happy with the prospect of Celia writing correspondences for him and she is happy in pianola. The two characters complement each other and