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Expectations

At first glance, the narrator of "How" and the protagonist of "A Wall of Fire Rising" seem like two different people leading disparate lives. The Woman is a modern day female living in New York City while Guy is man who leads a more primitive lifestyle in a rural community. A closer look into the characters reveals that both
are suffocated by the lives and roles they are forced to live and yearn only to be freed of the challenges they face within themselves. Woman's and Guy's paths meet directly, however, on the road to escapism, and both similarly end in a destination of ruin and tragedy.
Guy leads a routine life by most standards. He comes home where an eager son and "nightly peck on the cheek" from his wife await him. He looks forward to immediately eating supper with his family, because it is a "thing that [they have] on [their] minds." Responsible for the welfare of his family, the night they eat supper is fulfilling on the surface, as the family relieves themselves of hunger. After his son recites lines about a revolution, Guy relates to the moment "with a strange feeling that [he cannot] explain." After saying his table prayer, Guy has to "keep tears from rolling down his face."
At night, Guy escapes his thoughts through his reassurance that the family has put "their hunger vermin to sleep." Still, the reader gets the sense that Guy is experiencing a revolution of his own in his mind, and that his hunger has not been satisfied. "Guy let[s] go of the hands of both his wife and boy" and runs to the field where an air balloon rests. It is in that moment that he has let the "longing" take over him, and his wife makes a quick notice of it. She notes that Guy has "a flame in his eyes brighter than [a] lighter's."
The narrator of "How" leads a routine life, as well. She lives with a man who, at one point has made her "feel discovered, comforted, needed, [and] loved." At night, she makes love to him and still occasionally experiences waves of sentimentality...