"The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant and "The Story of An Hour" by Kate Chopin.
In both these stories, authors portray two very different yet alike women who have trouble accepting their fate and are trying to reject the life of women of their class. Mathilde Loisel and Louise Mallard are very alike because they dream of something they do not have, then their dreams come true, but destiny plays a fatal role in both stories, and ladies lose everything they had. In both stories, ladies have caring husbands, whom they do not appreciate .Unfortunately, the endings of both stories are tragic.
From the first lines of both stories, it is clear that Mathilde Loisel and Mrs. Mallard dream of living different lives. The only difference between them is that they dream of different treasures.
Mathilde Loisel suffers from her middle-class lifestyle. "She had no dresses, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing but that; she felt made for that. She would so have liked to please, to be envied, to be charming, to be sought after." (Maupassant, p. 36) It is clear that Mathilde is envious of her reach friend, Madame Forestier and would trade places with her if only she had the chance, but unfortunately she is stuck with her clerk husband in their middle-class apartment.
Unlike Mathilde Loisel, Mrs. Mallard from “The Story of An Hour” doesn’t suffer from her middle-class lifestyle. Mrs. Mallard, who is a fragile woman afflicted with heart trouble, suffers from being trapped in a marriage. She loves her husband, however she longs for freedom. When Mrs. Mallard learns about her husband’s death, she is grieving, but she also feels a sense of liberation and grieves more about her lost years of independence rather than her husband's death.
Secondly, both Mathilde and Mrs. Mallard have dreams and thoughts which appear selfish and self-involved.
However, Mathilde’s dreams are