When a couple goes through struggles and miscommunication, they tend to develop this shadowy image that affects their marriage, as in the short stories “The Painted Door” and “The Lamp at Noon.” These particular stories focus on how the 1930s were quite complicated for a couple that depended on the vast lands across Canada for survival. During this period the land was dry, weather extreme and money scarce. Difficulties and miscommunications can cause hardship for both individuals in a relationship. The land was quite inclement as the couples in both short stories fought for what they had left. The days ahead were not very promising but maintained as the tragic days went by. Adjusting to how the marriage of a farmer’s wife was “meant” to be was not creating the picture in both women’s lives for which they had hoped. The women expected time, love and simply someone to be there for when they needed them to be. Although the men failed to do so, the wives searched for answers or attention from this ill-fated time, but in the end everything they ever wanted in life was right in front of them the whole time. As said in “The Painted Door,” Ann was not so fortunate with her marriage, for John was never there for her physically, emotionally and mentally. She then began to have deep thoughts about Steven and how he was very different from John. She took the thoughts she had into consideration and proceeded with them by acting upon them. After reality struck her guilty conscious, she then realized that John made her happy within and that Steven was just her illusion of wanting “better.” “Clutched by the thought she stood rooted a minute. It was hard now to understand how she could have so deceived herself – how a moment of passion could have quieted within her not only conscience, but reason and discretion too” (Sinclair Ross, pg. 18). Though the tragedy is different in “The Lamp at Noon,” the general aspect of h