...Compare and Contrast Essay: “Story of an Hour” and “To My Dear and Loving Husband” Thesis: In the short story, “Story of an Hour” by Mary Chopin and the poem “To my Dear and Loving Husband”, by Anne Bradstreet both authors reveal how each of their female characters feel about their husband and how each feelings are expressed differently I. Both women are treated differently by their husbands. A. In the “Story of an Hour”, the central character, Louise Mallard, feels locked in her marriage. B. In “To My Dear and Loving Husband”, the author Anne feels safe and secure in her marriage. II. Both women express different feelings about their mates. A. In “Story of an Hour”, Louise feels that it is not enough that her husband loves her. B. In “To My Dear and Loving Husband”, Anne values her relationship with her husband more than anything. III. Both authors use literary concepts to make their writings easier to understand. A. In “Story of an Hour”, the line free, free, free tells us that Louise feels free after learning of her husband’s death. B. In “To My Dear and Loving Husband”, the line I prize thy love more than mines of gold tells us that she values their love very much. A WOMAN’S LOVE FOR A MAN As every woman is an individual with distinct characteristics so too will her feelings towards her husband are uniquely expressed. There are husbands who try to control their wives so much that the woman cannot freely follow does their own will. Then there are...
Words: 1304 - Pages: 6
...CA Essay “Story of an Hour” Kate Chopin’s literary work has touched many reader with an open mind of what many women in the ninetieth century was going through as a woman with no freedom. One of the most commendable aspects of Kate Chopin’s short story “The story of an Hour” is the fact that the author is able to manipulate oppression, freedom and symbolism in a table that is extraordinary compact. SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Story of an Hour.” SparkNotes LLC. 2007. http://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/the-story-of-an-hour/ (accessed September 29, 2013). In the story, Mrs. Louise Mallards was an oppressed wife of Brentley Mallard. She afflicted with a weak heart and good care was taken to give her the news of her husbands death from a railroad accident. Her sister Joseline told her in broken sentences about the loss of Mr. Mallard. Obviously, Mallard reacted to obvious grief and admits that her husband was kind and loving. She knew at the funeral she would "weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead". However, despite the love between each other, Brentley’s death was a release from oppression. She never described ways he oppressed her, but hinted that the marriages in general stifles both women and men. Also, she suggested that she oppressed him as much as he oppressed her. Mallard thoughts that was going...
Words: 827 - Pages: 4
...For my comparison and contrast essay I am electing to use Mrs. Louise Mallard from Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour"and Mrs. Mathilde Loisel from Guy de Maupassant's "The Necklace". In my essay I am not only going to compare and contrast these two ladies but also explain each one of the characters backgrounds, actions, and their motivations as well as each of their settings. The story of an hour , is among other things, a reflection of the idea that marriage is confining and limiting for women. It is Louise's reaction to her husband's death, her new found freedom and renewed excitement about life that illustrates to the reader that her previous existence was one in which she had no freedom, no excitement, no interest in the uncertainties that lie ahead. There is also this sence that was unacceptable for her to feel this way. To have an interest in driving her own future or to have any kind of joy in being alone, or living for oneself. Mrs. Louise Mallard lives in an era were women obeyed their husbands and took care of the house. Kate Chopin is a feminist writer. In Guy de Maupassant's "The Necklace", Mathilde Loisel is attractive and pretty,but unhappy, very unhappy. She believes that life has played her falsely. She feels relegated to a lower station than she deserves. She wanted to be appreciated and loved by some rich gentleman from a good family, but instead, having no dowry, she had to settle for a junior clerk in the Ministry of Public Instruction. Mathilde is so humiliated...
Words: 447 - Pages: 2
...Debra Bronstein English 1B Short Story Essay Prompt Essay Due: Monday 10/15 at the beginning of class (100 points) Please write a 4-5 page essay. All papers should be typed, double-spaced, 12-point font (Times New Roman), with one-inch margins. All papers must analyze how the rhetorical/formal/symbolic/narrative elements of the short story contribute to your understanding of the text. Please review these terms from your literary terms quiz and your class notes to remind yourself how authors deploy them in the stories. Please choose one of the following topics. Note: I ask a lot of questions within each of the topics because I want to give you many options to consider; however, this does not mean that you have to answer all the sub-questions. Use them as guides to jumpstart your thinking. 1. Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Jewett’s “A White Heron,” Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” track a particular symbol throughout the short story. Focusing on one of these stories, show how the author uses the development of the symbol in order to reflect the demise or spiritual growth of the main characters. Hint: for “The Things They Carried, you can focus on the word carry rather than on a specific individual symbol. 2. Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” are both narrated by unreliable narrators who go crazy. Focusing on one of these stories, how does the author portray insanity...
Words: 879 - Pages: 4
...Running head: ESSAY 6.1: THE STORY OF AN HOUR Essay 6.1: The Story of an Hour Jeremy Todd Macy ITT Technical Institute Essay 6.1: The Story of an Hour Freedom!!! Liberation!!! The idea of living your life for yourself, not others; it is something that we all dream of at some point in our lives, but how many of us actually achieve that? Whether we feel trapped in a job that we hate, a bad friendship, or a bad marriage, there is something inside us that yearns to be free. We long for that weight to be taken off of our shoulders. Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour takes us through these emotions, only to find out at the end that these emotions are fleeting, and then reality sets in. What will be discussed in this paper is the plot of the story and those feelings that are experienced, Kate Chopin’s life experiences and how that experience influenced this story, as well as my reaction to the story. The story starts off with Mrs. Mallard( we don’t know her first name) being told some distressing news. Josephine, her sister, is trying to relay this horrible news in the most delicate matter. Mrs. Mallard has severe heart problems, although she is young. Brentley, her husband, was killed in a train accident. She weeps, with “sudden, wild abandonment”, at the news (Woodlief, Study Text). She then sinks into an armchair, and begins to ponder the future. The sky opens up, showing the calming blue. Her horizons seem to broaden, she gets a feeling of starting over, fresh. She is still...
Words: 1310 - Pages: 6
...Oppression and Freedom of Women in Literature In the Nineteenth Century, women are viewed as inferiors to men. They are considered to be on the same level as children. Their role in society is that of housewives, child bearers and caretakers. However, women desperately needed more out of life and aspired to be like men. Throughout history women have fought for freedom and for society to view them as equals to men. Unfortunately, marriage in the Nineteenth Century is the only acceptable position for a woman. In Margaret Fuller’s book, Women in the Nineteenth Century, she describes the different types of marriages. The first type, the household partnership, is merely a convenience and a mutual dependence. The man is the provider and the woman is the caretaker. The second type is a mutual admiration, where man and woman share pure feelings with one another. The last is a marriage of intellectual companionship, where the man and woman are friends. The “transition of marriage in earlier times is that of convenience” (Fuller). These marriages lead many women to feel heavily burdened, both mentally and physically. In the literary works “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, both women are characterized as victims oppressed by their marriage and their strong desire to be free. In each story, the women depicted are oppressed in their marriages. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the unidentified woman is taken to a summer...
Words: 1668 - Pages: 7
...Fear Of Independence: Oppression of Women In The Nineteenth Century in “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman What lengths are women willing to go through to avoid being shunned by society; a society they, too, are apart of? Women in the ninetieth century are expected to be poised, courteous, managers of their homes and, most importantly, subordinate to their husbands as well as to society (Hartman). In both “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin (14) and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (118) the protagonists fear living life freely. Is their fear so strong and impossible to overcome that it drives one to insanity and the other to death? These women are expected to be healthy and strong. Unfortunately, due to their never-ending workload of being the perfect women society expects them to be, they are exhausted. Instead of society recognizing this, they are considered ill. Their illness is accepted because it is thought that their ailments are a result of being a woman, which explains to society why they are weak both physically and mentally. They are unlike the men of this time who do not suffer of such ailments! Even today when speaking to women who were raised by the women of the latter part of this era, stories are often told that a sign of a good woman is when her chimney is the first in the morning to start smoking and the last to be smothered. If you dare to question why...
Words: 1863 - Pages: 8
...Name Course- Instructor Date Interpretive Plot Analysis Of The story Of An Hour Introduction The trajectory of “The story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is seemingly deluding when the reader goes through the story superficially and not tries to get a grip over the plot line. Mrs. Mallard is vexed by a weak heart and therefore any bad news should be broken in gentle manner to her. When her sister Josephine tells her about the news of his husband perishing in a train accident, then instead of struggling against the truth, she succumbs to the flow of events easily and cries her eyes out and then in a subtle manner, shifts into a bout of joyous mood where a sense of freedom is instilled inside her being. The last sentence which describes the cause of Mrs. Mallard’s death to be excessive joy is actually due to the shock of realization that she no longer is free or rather she never was eligible to embrace freedom. This story emphasizes upon the reality of the era in which the story was set where women were given very few rights and where marriage used to be oppressive institution. Also, the events mirror the true innate feelings of Mrs. Mallard which is contrasting to the notion that she loves being married.( Literature (Fiction)( Google.co.in) Topic 1- Conflict Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death. ...
Words: 869 - Pages: 4
...Corey Campbell June 29, 2009 English 098 Kate Chopin Essay Catherine O’ Flaherty was born February 8, 1851 (tombstone date). She would later marry Oscar Chopin and become Kate Chopin, critically acclaimed and condemned author of two novels (At Fault and The Awakening) and many short stories. She was a beautiful, intelligent woman who was able to tell powerful stories about the lives of people in the nineteenth century. Chopin’s insight writing revealed the hidden emotions, trials, and tribulations of the nineteenth century women. In the story of an hour, Chopin tells the story of Mrs. Mallard and the extraordinary changes including shock, acceptance and joy she endures during this hour in her home. Mrs. Mallard’s feelings are changed by the news of her husband’s death, the reality of living her life alone and the revelation that her husband was still alive. The glimpse into Mrs. Mallards private thoughts revealed a women momentarily saddened by the loss of her husband. “Go away. I am not making myself ill. No she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window. Her fancy was running riot along those days of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long”. Chopin reveals with these words that this woman is actually relived to be a widow and excited about experiencing life without the stress and...
Words: 519 - Pages: 3
...Jacob Perrotti 1 Ms. Hendra EN-111 Essay “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin are two different stories with the women both suffering from an illness. One of the women are sufferering from a mental illness and the other physical, and both are bery emotionally detached from their husbands. In “An Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard is at first devistated from her husbands death but soon realizes this means she is free from him, and in “The Yellow Wallpaper” it seems that John is very controlling and doesn't pay true attention to his wife. The illnesses of both the women affect their relationships in very similar ways. To begin, though two different stories, both women seemed to be emotionally distant from their husbands. Emotional detachment could stem from complacency in the marriage but I believe it's their illness that is the cause of the disengagement. During the era in which these stories were written, marriages were an economic arrangement which had very little to do with love. In both stories, the couplese seem to have an ideal marriage, which eventually turns to aloofness, in part due to the women's illnesses. Perhaps the husband thought that she was too fragile, or it was a one sided relationship. This could be bacuse ending a marriage during this time was unheard of. The protagonist in “The Yellow Wallpaper” suffers from mental illness which ca be read...
Words: 972 - Pages: 4
...Carlos Gonzalez Professor Dr. Wiggins 26, September 2011 Essay # 1 Throughout history many people have fought for their freedom in many ways. People have protested, marched, and even fought wars in order to preserve their rights. Women fought for equal rights. The black population fought to be freed from slavery. Today everyone is free and everyone has equal rights, but even today in 2011 after women have the same authority as men, some men still see women as their property. Some men still think the female is meant to stay home, Cook, clean, and take care of the children and her husband. Many females with a low education tend to follow their husbands commands. These circumstances are shown to us In The Story Of An Hour, by Kate Chopin, she explains in her short story how men and women observed life. Men were responsible of certain things and women were responsible of certain duties as well. This was normal for a typical matrimony in the late 1800’s. In this short story the protagonist, Mrs. Louise Mallard, lives with her husband, Mr. Mallard, in a rural setting. There has been a railroad disaster in which people think Mrs. Mallard husband was involved and died. Kate’s sister Josephine does not know how to tell her sister about the incident since Louise suffers from heart problems. Once Louise finds out about the incident, her first reaction is to cry and run to her room. Kate Chopin uses positive description to describe the room. Even though she had just gotten the...
Words: 834 - Pages: 4
...Comparing and Contrasting “The Story of an Hour” and “How I Met My Husband”. Lora Cruse Ashford University ENG125 11/20/2014 In this essay I will be comparing and contrasting two great short stories. One being “The Story of an Hour” written by Kate Chopin in 1854 and the other being “How I Met my Husband” written by Alice Munro in 1974. The two short stories share the theme of gender roles/marriage. That being said,, I will be going over plot, point of view and tone. Sometimes women feel like they are trapped in their marriage, and sometimes women cannot wait to become married. Kate Chopin's “The Story of an Hour represents a negative view of marriage. Every individual takes a different approach when enduring the loss of a loved one. Whether it is bursting into tears or being miserable. When a wife loses a husband, she typically tends to be in a state of depression. The feeling of losing your significant other is a piercing agony going through one's heart, but in this case the feeling of loss can turn into someone's freedom. For Louise Mallard she had an erratic reaction when she was informed that her husband had been allegedly killed in a train accident. She locks herself in her room and sits in front of the window in desolation. She begins to ponder how her life will be without her husband. The sorrow that Mrs. Mallard felt in the beginning slowly turns into joy. “Free body and soul free!” (Chopin...
Words: 1211 - Pages: 5
...In Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour”, Louise Mallard is one of the main characters and one of the only that we get to know the most throughout the story. She is the main character, and the story focuses on her thoughts and feelings. At the end of the short story, Louise Mallard’s destiny does not end well when Chopin decides there is not another choice for her than death. “When the doctor came they said she had died of heart disease- of joy that kills” (Chopin 130). After acknowledging the news of her husband death’s, the thoughts and feelings she has while in front of her sister, Josephine, and her husband’s friend, Richard, are very different than the one she has while in her room by herself. Because of the way she acts and thinks, Louis Mallard’s death looks as pure disappointment of the loss of her thoughts about freedom. Her death is ironic because the tone of the last line, readers can tell that she did not die of a heart disease. Readers of the short story can assume she dies because in the beginning of the story, Louise is introduced as someone...
Words: 1182 - Pages: 5
...e Story of an Hour" What do YOU think killed Mrs. Mallard? Why? What did you learn by reading the essays following the story? How do you think that reading the sample essays will help you in writing your own essay on fiction? The Story of an Hour written by Kate Chopin is about Mrs. Mallard, the sickly wife of Bentley Mallard who is believed dead. Throughout the story the Chopin describes the rare reaction of Mr. Mallard towards the institution of marriage after her husbands dead. Chopin describes the grief of the woman in such a sad event, as a potential for the woman to change her life in a positive way. The different ways in which the author describes Mrs. Mallard feelings and actions after the notice are purposed to reveal the problems of being tied to another person. From my point of view the concept of being married means being tied to another person no matter how good or bad circumstances are. The matter of fact is that being tied to another person, prevent us from being ourselves. The story of an hour clearly reflects this concept beginning by describing Mrs. Mallard as a woman with a “heart trouble” and not certainly because she is unhealthy. All of her illnesses come her condition within marriage, either because she finds out about her husband death or because of the inherent thought of being tied to her partner. This is explained later as the author describes the main character as "young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain...
Words: 1448 - Pages: 6
...The Story of an Hour Pamela Richard ENG 125 Lesa Hadley May 11, 2012 The Necklace vs. The Story of an Hour A short story, “The Necklace” (“La parure”) written by Guy de Maupassant in 1884 and a poem, ‘The Story of an Hour” written by Kate Chopin in 1894 are literary works that are very comparable yet are different. The two women, Madame Mathilde Loisel and Louise Mallard, portrayed in these literary works are protagonists who have trouble because of conflicting expectations imposed on them by society. Both Mathilde Loisel and Louise Mallard want something more than what their lifestyle offers them. During the time when the authors wrote these pieces, the social behaviors showed gender suppression/oppression. This essay will compare and contrast elements of content, form, and style between two different literary works. Both authors chose the theme of gender roles in marriage. During the time when the authors wrote theses pieces, the social behaviors showed gender suppression/oppression. The nineteenth century was impacted by the industrial revolution which caused a gap in gender roles, especially in the upper and middle classes (Radek, 2001). Men and women were thought to have completely different natures. Men were considered to be powerful, brave, rational and independent. Women were considered weak, timid, emotional, and dependent. Those differences separated their functions in society. "Men were thought to have natures suited to the public world, women to the...
Words: 3460 - Pages: 14
