Essay Comparing Annabel Lee And The Story Of An Hour

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Un(ending) Love

What are the differences between conditional and unconditional love? What are the differences between an everlasting love and a love that just fades away? In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe, both create a love story with a tragic ending. In “The Story of an Hour,” Chopin tells the story of Mrs. Mallard’s family explaining the news of the train accident death her husband, Brently Mallard. Through the death of her husband, Mrs. Mallard found a new freedom and independence she had never felt in being with Brently. That joy then came to a tragic end when the death of her husband was false, and he walked in alive and well, where she then died “-of joy that kills.” In contrast, “Annabel Lee,” Poe also describes the story of a couple, that lived “in a kingdom by the sea.” They loved each other with such great love, that even the angels in heaven were jealous. Tragedy hit when Annabel Lee died from what the speaker believes was winged seraphs taking her away …show more content…

How Annabel’s lover expresses his love to Annabel and how Mrs. Mallard expresses love toward Brently is greatly different. Annabel’s lover loved with a deep passionate love, before her death, in response to her death, and continued walking through life with his main focus still being of his love, Annabel Lee. In contrast, Mrs. Mallard loved with what some people, even she admits, was not always love. Her response of her husband’s death is led with selfish ambition and goals for her future freedom, then after claiming that freedom, she then walks triumphantly through life, without thought of her loss. So what is the difference between unconditional and conditional love and an everlasting and fading love? “The Story of an Hour” and “Annabel Lee” define that

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