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Katharine Brush's Short Story: The Birthday Party

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In the short story " The Birthday Party" by Katharine Brush, the author writes about a married couple in the 1940s having a dinner at a restaurant to celebrate the husband’s birthday. The wife surprises her husband with small cake, but rather than showing appreciation for his wife’s gesture, he scolds her for embarrassing him. Brush writes the story in a second-person narrative to have the reader experience the scenario, utilizes caricatures to describe the couple’s appearance, and symbolism to express the wife’s intention. The author's implies that not all marriages are as happy as they appear to be. Brush has the reader imagine him/herself at the restaurant viewing the couple sitting across the restaurants. The narrator first describes

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