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Short summary of the gift of the magi
Character analysis of the story of an hour
Character analysis of the story of an hour
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Many married couples have different views on their relationships. Some married couples are really happy together forever. For others couples, they may have been happy however; now they are miserable in that relationship. In both stories each marriage shows how different they are from each other. In “ The Gift of the Magi”, O. Henry writes about how a happy couple sacrifice for one another to get each other the perfect gift. While in the “The Story of an Hour” Kate Chopin describes a relationship that is not as pleasant as everybody thinks it is. Both stories show how each other relationship is different in each of the stories.
In the “Gift of the Magi”, Della and Jim are a couple who cannot afford much. Jim and Della do not have a lot; however, they both go to great lengths to get the perfect present for each other. They sacrifice their most prized possessions for each other. Della sacrifices her hair, while Jim sacrifices his pocket watch. Della thinks that Jim will leave her because she cut her long beautiful hair. However, Jim does not care that Della cut
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Mallard who receive news that her husband just died. Mrs. Mallard at first is a grieving widow. As she starts to think about it, she is happy that her husband is dead. Mrs. Mallard finally feels “free” to do whatever she feels like now. When she finds out that her husband is alive, she dies of a heart attack. This short story shows that Mrs. Mallard was not happy in her relationship with Mr. Mallard. She seems relieved that he is gone and now she can start a new life. Clues in the text like “free body and soul” seems that Mrs. Mallard was not happy in her marriage. Mrs. Mallard does not grieve her husband 's death that long, she is only upset for a couple minutes. Some married people grieve for years about their love ones. However; Mrs. Malard is upset about the news about her husband then like ten minutes later moves on and thinks about the
Mrs. Mallard’s husband is thought to be dead, and since she has that thought in her mind she goes through many feelings
Brockmeier’s short story represents a damaged marriage between a husband and a wife simply due to a different set of values and interests. Brockmeier reveals that there is a limit to love; husbands and wives will only go so far to continually show love for each other. Furthermore, he reveals that love can change as everything in this ever changing world does. More importantly, Brockmeier exposes the harshness and truth behind marriage and the detrimental effects on the people in the family that are involved. In the end, loving people forever seems too good to be true as affairs and divorces continually occur in the lives of numerous couples in society. However, Brockmeier encourages couples to face problems head on and to keep moving forward in a relationship. In the end, marriage is not a necessity needed to live life fully.
The couples share a certain amount of love for each other but the disconnection was stronger. The protagonist’s disconnection is evident because her husband treats her like a little girl instead of a wife when he takes her “ …in her arms and called [her] a blessed little goose” (p121). The Mallard’s disconnection is also evident because her husband’s “face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead” (p 15). This is not the emotion a wife wants to feel from her husband.
Mrs. Mallard?s freedom did not last but a few moments. Her reaction to the news of the death of her husband was not the way most people would have reacted. We do not know much about Mr. And Mrs. Mallards relationship. We gather from the text that her freedom must have been limited in some way for her to be feeling this way. Years ago women were expected to act a certain way and not to deviate from that. Mrs. Mallard could have been very young when she and Brently were married. She may not have had the opportunity to see the world through a liberated woman?s eyes and she thought now was her chance.
She is now told her husband died so she runs to her bedroom to be left alone. While her sister and family friend are downstairs feeling sorry for her and thinking she is destroyed, Mrs. Mallard comes upon an unsuspected feeling that she is now “free.” Since this story was written in 1894, which was a very tough ti...
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...
“The Story of the Hour” by Kate Chopin portrays an opposing perspective of marriage by presenting the reader with a woman who is somewhat untroubled by her husbands death. The main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard encounters the sense of freedom rather than sorrow after she got knowledge of her husbands death. After she learns that her husband, Brently, is still alive, it caused her to have a heart attack and die. Even though “The Story of the Hour” was published in the eighteen hundreds, the views of marriage in the story could coincide with this era as well.
Mrs. Mallard is an ill woman who is “afflicted with heart trouble” and had to be told very carefully by her sister and husband’s friend that her husband had died (1609). Her illness can be concluded to have been brought upon her by her marriage. She was under a great amount of stress from her unwillingness to be a part of the relationship. Before her marriage, she had a youthful glow, but now “there was a dull stare in her eyes” (1610). Being married to Mr. Mallard stifled the joy of life that she once had. When she realizes the implications of her husband’s death, she exclaims “Free! Body and soul free!” (1610). She feels as though a weight has been lifted off her shoulders and instead of grieving for him, she rejoices for herself. His death is seen as the beginn...
Mrs. Mallard was at first overjoyed with freedom because her husband was supposedly “dead,” yet at the end of the story, Mrs. Mallard comes face to face with Mr. Mallard. A whole new wave of emotions overcame Mrs. Mallard as she laid eyes on her husband instantly killing her from “a heart disease-of joy that kills.” It is ironic how Mrs. Mallard is overjoyed about her husband’s death, and she ended up dying because she found out he was alive instead. Her joy literally was killed, killing her on the inside as
The “Gift of the Magi”, by O. Henry, is a short story that unfolds in an unanticipated and remarkable way that gently tugs the reader in which makes them want to continue reading. The story is about two characters named Della and Jim. For Christmas, Della cuts her hair to sell for money to buy Jim a chain for his watch while Jim sells his watch to buy Della some fancy combs. They both couldn’t use each other's gifts properly by reason of them sacrificing what they loved likewise finding delight in giving - what is foolish in the head, may be wise for the heart.
Mallard’s emotions over the presumed death of her husband. The author used both dramatic and situational irony to mislead the reader and surprise them with a plot twist ending. By utilizing both external and internal conflict the author expresses the internal debate of Mrs. Mallard’s true feelings and those of the people around her. The author used symbolism to display Mrs. Mallard’s desire for freedom from her marriage. In the end it was not joy that killed Mrs. Mallard but the realization that she lost her
Most women in Mrs Mallard’s situation were expected to be upset at the news of her husbands death, and they would worry more about her heart trouble, since the news could worsen her condition. However, her reaction is very different. At first she gets emotional and cries in front of her sister and her husbands friend, Richard. A little after, Mrs. Mallard finally sees an opportunity of freedom from her husbands death. She is crying in her bedroom, but then she starts to think of the freedom that she now has in her hands. “When she abandoned herse...
Mallard states that she is going to live her new life independently now that Mr. Mallard is gone; she accepts her newfound freedom and believes that she is now an independent woman. Mrs. Mallard was oppressed by Mr. Mallard, and Chopin hints at this oppression: “Chopin seems to be making a comment on nineteenth-century marriages, which granted one person - the man - right to own and dominate another - the woman,” (“The Story of an Hour” 266). The men and women should be treated equally in marriage and should be free, which relates to Mrs. Mallard feeling oppressed by Mr. Mallard. She realizes that she was below her husband her whole married life: “What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!” (Chopin 645). Her inferiority to her husband controlled her; his death allows her to start over as an independent being. Mrs. Mallard is known to have heart trouble, but readers do not understand what that trouble is until they soon find out: “Later, when we see Mrs. Mallard ‘warmed and relaxed,’ we realize that the problem with her heart is that her marriage has not allowed her to ‘live for herself,’” (Hicks 269). The readers find out that Mrs. Mallard’s mystery heart trouble dealt with her being confined by Mr. Mallard in marriage, which she soon turns away from. Mrs. Mallard’s internal struggle is caused by rushing into marriage; she did not develop herself before developing a relationship with someone else, such as Mr. Mallard: “Love is not a substitute for selfhood; indeed selfhood is love’s pre-condition,” (Ewell 273). Mrs. Mallard may have felt constrained by Mr. Mallard in her marriage because she did not know herself before. If she had known herself before the marriage, she would have known her own constraints and opinions, instead of feeling oppressed by Mr. Mallard. Mrs. Mallard accepts her freedom and independence. She decides to live
“There is no perfect relationship. The idea that there is gets us into so much trouble.”-Maggie Reyes. Kate Chopin reacts to this certain idea that relationships in a marriage during the late 1800’s were a prison for women. Through the main protagonist of her story, Mrs. Mallard, the audience clearly exemplifies with what feelings she had during the process of her husbands assumed death. Chopin demonstrates in “The Story of an Hour” the oppression that women faced in marriage through the understandings of: forbidden joy of independence, the inherent burdens of marriage between men and women and how these two points help the audience to further understand the norms of this time.
My belief on marriage is a sacred vow taken by two people which joins them in union. Most people carry the belief that marriage should occur only when two people are in love; although this belief is common it is not always the case and people marry for a variety of reasons. In the short story "The Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin suggests that in the case of Mrs. Mallard and Mr. Mallard, love was not a deciding factor for their reason to get married. Though the response of three readers, one being myself, we will explore the character of Mrs. Mallard and the idea of love in her marriage. Kate Chopin has given little detail about the Mallards and therefore left much to the imagination of the reader. Although there are similarities in details between readers such as: point of view, setting, and character, each reader brings new perspective and ideas. This type of analysis of the text allows a richer and more knowledgeable outlook; not only by enhancing ones own ideas by introducing new ones.