Compare and Contrast
Story of an Hour and Astronomer's Wife
It is a very difficult task for women to live a content life while in a despondent marriage. Though it has been done, it is simply no easy task. In the short stories "Story of an hour", and "Astronomers Wife" Kate Chopin and Kay Boyle both suggests to their readers that a woman needs a man to connect with her physically to be happy. The two stories both share the thesis that women are being held back by their husbands and there is plenty of evidence to prove this. With Chopin's story taking place in the 50's, and Boyle's story taking place at the turn of the century, they encounter parallel situations with a time difference of almost 50 years.
If we compare the wives in the two stories, we can see that they are quite similar. Mrs. Mallard in "Story of an Hour" dislikes her husband. She's despondent with her marriage and has no children. She wants to be free from her marriage and she does not want another marriage. She wants to live her own happy and private life but she's stuck with her husband. In "Astronomers Wife", Mrs. Ames also dislikes her husband, also is unhappy with her marriage, and also wants freedom from her current marriage. The difference however, is that unlike Mrs. Mallard, she does want another marriage; she wants a different man. She just doesn't want the husband she has now. She feels that she doesn't receive enough attention from him because he is always so captivated by his work. As you can see, these two characters are so similar in two different stories as well
as two different points in time. This shows the readers that this unhappy marriage issue is not a very unusual problem. It happens to many people in many diffe...
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...o start a new life. The freedom that she desired has been achieved and there is hope for a happier marriage after all.
As you can see, the two short stories both evidently share the same thesis that women are being held back by their husbands. Mrs. Mallard and Mrs. Ames are those women. Unfortunately, Mrs. Mallard wasn't too successful with her goal and she has a tragic death. Mrs. Ames however, got what she had desired, a new man, new relationship, and a new start. It was more difficult for women to make a standing point or just to be heard during Mrs. Mallard and Mrs. Ames times. They didn't have as much of
a voice as they do today. For Mrs. Mallard in "Story of an Hour", it seems that it may be better to die, then to live in chains. For Mrs. Ames on the other hand, she found the man that a woman needs to connect with her physically to be happy.
Amongst the short stories titled "A Story of an Hour" and "The Revolt of Mother", both of the main women in these narratives have experienced living life in a society which viewed them as inferior to the opposite gender. Mrs. Mallard, the main character in "A Story of an Hour", is an ill woman who was faced with the hardship of coping with her husband's sudden death. However, to the reader's surprise, Louise Mallard "did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance" (Chopin 1). Since Mrs. Mallard was the wife of Brently Mallard, she was undoubtedly expected to grieve endlessly for the loss of her own husband. Yet, Louise expressed her feelings of sorrow and pain only for a short
... excited about what she will finally be able to do with her life. She actually understood that she will finally be able to live for herself, but she finds out he is not dead her grief comes back as is what kills her. How sad can that be for these women to feel that they have no other option out of their marriage.
Mrs. Ames from “The Astronomer’s Wife” and Elisa Allen from “The Chrysanthemums”, two women in their best ages, did share similar lives. They were loyal wives, of decent beauty and good manners. They were married for some time, without any children and they were fighting the dullness of their marriages. At first, it looked like they were just caught in marriage monotony, but after the surface has been scratched deeper, it was clear that these two women were crying for attention: but they had different reasons.
In both stories, the two characters were married and had almost a similar marriage experience. They had the same feelings. Mr. Mallard and Mathilde both had a loving husband. That was
Throughout history women have pioneered their way into occupations that were once occupied solely by men. Not surprisingly, many achievements have come from women challenging and stepping out of their expected social roles. Today most women are free to voice their opinion and express themselves in every aspect of their lives, including their marriage. It was not long ago when women were deprived of this freedoms. In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin Mrs. Mallard has been informed of the death of her husband. At first she feels melancholy because they both loved each other. He never mistreated her but at the same time she was chained to him. She quickly changes her mood when realizing what the death of her husband has given her. In the story “The Storm” by Kate Chopin, Calixta is a loving
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of the Hour” and Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is viewed from a woman’s perspective of the nineteenth century. They showed the issues on how they were confined to the house. That they were to be stay at home wives and let the husband earn the household income. These stories are both written by American women and how their marriage was brought about. Their husbands were very controlling and treated them more like children instead of their wives. In the nineteenth century their behavior was considered normal at the time. In “The Story of the Hour” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” both women explore their issues on wanting to be free of the control of their husband.
In today’s society, the notion and belief of growing old, getting married, having kids, and a maintaining of a happy family, seems to be a common value among most people. In Kevin Brockmeier’s short story, “The Ceiling,” Brockmeier implies that marriage is not necessary in our society. In fact, Brockmeier criticizes the belief of marriage in his literary work. Brockmeier reveals that marriage usually leads to or ends in disaster, specifically, all marriages are doomed to fail from the start. Throughout the story, the male protagonist, the husband, becomes more and more separated from his wife. As the tension increases between the protagonist and his wife, Brockmeier symbolizes a failing marriage between the husband and wife as he depicts the ceiling in the sky closing upon the town in which they live, and eventually crushing the town entirely as a whole.
The only round and dynamic character in “The Story of An Hour” is Mrs. Louise Mallard. Mrs. Mallard is the protagonist and is at first perceived to young with a fair complexion but somehow full of strength. Her sister Josephine, her husband’s friend Richards, and her husband Brently are all static characters with little said about them throughout the passage. Josephine and Richards are only concerned
Marriage can be seen as a subtle form of oppression, like many things which are dictated by social expectations. In Kate Chopin’s The Story of An Hour, Louise Mallard finds herself in distress due to the event of her husband’s death that makes her question who she is as a person. The author cleverly uses this event to create the right atmosphere for Mrs. Mallard to fight against her own mind. As the short story progresses, we see that Mrs. Mallard moves forward with her new life and finds peace in her decision to live for herself. This shows that marriage too is another chain that holds oneself back. Not wanting to admit this to herself, Louise
Marriage was once for the sole purpose of procreation and financially intensives. Living up to the roles that society had placed on married couples, more so women, is no longer the goal in marriage. Being emotional satisfied, having a fulfilled sex life and earning money is more important in marriage (Cherlin, 2013). Couples no longer feel the obligation to put the needs of their partner in front of their own needs. In the 1960’s and later it was the woman’s job to ensure that the house was clean, the children were bathed and dinner was prepared before the husband came home work. However, once more and more women began to enter the workplace and gain more independence, a desire for self-development and shared roles in the household lead way the individualistic marriage that is present in today’s society (Cherlin,
“The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin tells the fictional account of a woman who learns of her husband dying in a train crash and the ensuing hour after she is given that news. Within that hour, the protagonist Mrs. Mallard grieves over the loss of her husband, but also realizes a newfound freedom that she didn’t have being married. Chopin focuses on the theme of freedom, especially in terms of a woman’s role in marriage at the time the story was published (December 1894). In the short story “The Story of an Hour,” author Kate Chopin uses elements of the plot to evoke empathy and demonstrate how marriage affected a woman’s freedom in the late nineteenth century.
“The Story of an Hour” is the story of Mrs. Louise Mallard who suffers of a weak heart. This being the first we know of Mr. Mallard, she is carefully being told that her husband had just passed away in a train accident. As every good wife should, Mrs. Mallard breaks out in grief. At first, the story goes, as it should. Then Mrs. Mallard goes into her room where she begins thinking, and her first thought is that she is free. Mrs. Mallard after years of being in an unhappy marriage is finally free to do what she wants, with no one to hold her back. Yet everything is against her, when she finally accepts that her life will begin now, her husband enters his home, unscathed and well, not having known that everyone thought him dead, a...
In the short story, “The Story of an Hour,” author Kate Chopin presents the character of Mrs. Louis Mallard. She is an unhappy woman trapped in her discontented marriage. Unable to assert herself or extricate herself from the relationship, she endures it. The news of the presumed death of her husband comes as a great relief to her, and for a brief moment she experiences the joys of a liberated life from the repressed relationship with her husband. The relief, however, is short lived. The shock of seeing him alive is too much for her bear and she dies. The meaning of life and death take on opposite meaning for Mrs. Mallard in her marriage because she lacked the courage to stand up for herself.
Marriage is seen as one of the most beautiful things that two people can agree upon. Marriage is where two people who are in love agree to commit to be together through thick and thin for the rest of their lives. Although marriage is a very beautiful moment in life it does not necessarily mean that the people in the marriage are happy. In American society marriage comes across a very beautiful moment but also it comes across of a tie down. In American society many people feel that in marriage you are not free or you will no longer be able to do anything you prolong wanted or simply you cannot be yourself. In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, Mrs. Mallard undergoes series of emotions once she finds out her husband had died. However one
The main theme in “The Story of an Hour” is a woman’s freedom from oppression. Mrs. Mallard does not react accordingly to the news of her husband’s death; in the third paragraph it states, “she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment.” After her initial wave of shock and sadness has passed, however, she becomes elated with the thought of finally being free of her husband. Originally, she is described as being “pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body” and having lines that “bespoke repression”; in an attempt to be a perfect wife to a man whom she did not even love, Mrs. Mallard has been masking her true self. Once she realizes that she has finally gained the freedom that she has been longing for, Mrs. Mallard begins to