In Gloria Naylor's Linden Hills, the vignette of Ruth and Norman's life on Wayne Avenue contrasts sharply with the stories of residents living in the adjacent, more affluent neighborhood of Linden Hills. Naylor uses this couple to illustrate that, despite their crushing poverty, Ruth and Norman are one of the few families in the book with real goals and dreams. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get an Original Essay At first glance, the Anderson couple seems far from impressive; from the reader's first observation, Ruth is described as "a young woman pressed against [Norman's] arm, her body turned slightly towards his for warmth because the thin beige coat did very little for her" ( 31). We immediately realize that this is not a financially well-off family. Later, this point is emphasized when we see the couple entertaining Willie and Lester – rare guests – using their three precious Styrofoam cups, plastic spoons and paper napkins. Ruth and Norman go through an almost laughable ceremony of placing the cheap utensils and pouring the coffee. Satisfied with what they have, the couple looks "around their apartment as if the warm, cool air that filled the empty rooms was all that mattered" (33). Yet what these two lack in monetary resources, they seem to more than make up for in a powerful bond that even the greatest difficulties cannot dissolve. Naylor introduces us to the Anderson home, stating that "it was difficult to notice what was not in the Anderson apartment because so much care seemed to have been taken with what was there" (33). We perceive that this apartment, although composed of only three rooms and located in a dilapidated building, is truly a house in its own right. Each of the few objects in this apartment seems to have its own intrinsic value (in addition to its material meaning), playing a necessary role in the integrity of the house. This attribute can be contrasted with Ruth's friend Laurel Dumont's luxurious twelve-room stone Tudor at 722 Seventh Crescent Drive in Linden Hills. This imposing dream mansion is equipped with everything you could want in a home: four bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, a diving pool and a music room with advanced acoustics. Nevertheless, the reader quickly realizes that the Dumonts' lavish material accommodations only harm their marriage: the music room is conveniently designed to have room for only one chair, and the deep swimming pool is unfriendly to children that they will never have, to untimely children. murderer of their mother. The sad fact remains that “Laurel's swimming pool and music room had not transformed 722 into a home; they only gave him a pretext to return there” (233). Ruth and Norman, like any other couple, certainly have their problems. However, unlike many Linden Hills couples, they are not overwhelmed by crisis, ultimately guided by their devotion to each other. Although Norman is, to the average passerby, an ideal husband, the one who gives Ruth every paycheck and dotes on her, the reader discovers that he is prey to a disturbing psychological illness every twenty-one months : the “roses”. With the onset of this particular illness, Norman believes that the skin on his body is literally being eaten away by roses; he then desperately attempts to purge his body of the horrible parasite using every means available, from his teeth and nailsdown to “jagged sections of plates and glasses, wire hangers, curtain rods, splinters of wood” (34). In this senseless frenzy, Norman devastates his home, wiping out the possessions he and his wife have so carefully amassed over the preceding months. At one point, Ruth is ready to leave Norman, sick of the cycle of destruction and disappointment and herself suffering from inflamed ovaries that cannot be treated because there is no money. HoweverNorman then goes into a real attack of roses, he wants to stay in control to get his wife some aspirin and water when she collapses from pain in her side. On the verge of depression, Norman still feels that Ruth needs him and is willing to sacrifice herself (he can see the pink slime digesting her body before his eyes) for her well-being. In turn, Ruth sees that he is on the verge of collapse and finally she herself pushes him to fight the roses, thus taking the final step in accepting this illness as part of her husband. Norman later assesses and eloquently explains that "love reigns in this house" (38). Through love, Ruth embodies the literal meaning of her name: compassion and mercy toward the man with whom she has committed to spending the rest of her life in sickness and in health. Once overcoming a traumatic calamity like the Roses, one would expect relationships to thrive in the face of lesser conflict. Unfortunately, this assumption turns out to be tragically false when applied to many Linden Hills couples. A prominent example is that of the Dumont couple, whose abundance of material wealth only contributes to their lack of true love. A revealing and disturbing image depicts their home literally tearing them apart: in the ordinary act of climbing the stairs, "slowly, deceptively, the steps tilted until the couple's fingertips could barely meet across the abyss” (232). Likewise, material worries end up breaking the relationship between Winston Alcott and his true love David. Winston ultimately chooses to leave David behind and marry a woman, giving in to his father's pressure to conform and bury his true self. For his efforts, Winston receives the reward of an immaculate bride, as well as an improved residential package granted by Luther Nedeed himself. The dear price of this gain in social status, however, is the abandonment of one's soul mate and a definitive rejection of one's true identity. Luther Nedeed, the driving force behind the perpetuation of Linden Hills (ironically, a place in which families are supposed to reside and thrive), embodies the worst of relationships. Marriage, for him and his predecessors, had only the sole significance of producing an exact copy, a replica of Luther Nedeed, to pick up where the previous one left off. Nedeed's brides are, for the most part, chosen for their lighter skin color, almost as if it were an exotic prize to be displayed with the rest of Linden Hills. Even a place as intimate as the marriage bed is defiled and reduced to a methodical and perversely calculated means for the selfish purpose of producing another Luther. And having fulfilled their sole role as the vessel of the next Luther, these women are then emotionally neglected and left to linger alone for the rest of their days, scorned by their husbands and children. It's clear that the couple living in the decrepit apartment building on humble Wayne Avenue are far more emotionally rich than many of their counterparts who live much more comfortably in Linden Hills. In their obsessive need to gain material glory, it seems that the residents of Linden Hills are "devoured by their own urges", leaving not even "enough humanity...to fill the..