"Intervention"

The Intervention has both generational conflict as well as conflict between two people who are married. In this story the plot is definitely affected by the additional conflict of married individuals because it gives background information on their marriage. The story focuses on the good times in their marriage, including vacations and the birth of their first son, as well as the bad times like when Marilyn had an affair and developed a drinking problem because of it. This background information helps develop Marilyn and Sid’s relationship to the reader and creates an understanding for their current actions. Marilyn is not completely involved in the intervention even though she knows Sid has in an alcoholic because she feels the need to protect him similar to the way he helped her overcome her alcoholism. Without this additional conflict it might be confusing to readers why Marilyn was so resistant to her husband’s intervention.

In this story the word enabler refers to Marilyn, and her limited actions, that allows Sid to continue to drink. In this story the word enabler is used in a negative context to convey that Marilyn is allowing Sid to drink himself to destruction without any consequences. When Marilyn hides Sid’s keys so he will not drive drunk, or when she lets him pass out on the armchair because he is too drunk to move, or when she fixes the mailbox he has knocked over from driving drunk she is not confronting the problem but allowing it to continue without repercussions. While her actions are done out of love they are perpetuating Sid’s destructive behavior.