As Michel de Montaigne once said, “Marriage is like a cage, one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out”. Sometimes individual’s expectations about supposedly perfect events in life, such as marriage, fail to meet the extraordinary criteria. Though “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” by Ernest Hemingway, “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston, and “The Storm” by Kate Chopin take place in different times and locations, they share the common theme of marrying and remaining in a marriage for other reasons than love or passion. “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” is about a tragic hunting trip in Africa, “Sweat” is about an African-American woman who stands up to her husband, and “The Storm” is about a woman who has an affair during the storm. In all three short stories, a weak foundation for marriage leads to infidelity, perhaps even insanity for some of the characters. …show more content…
Throughout his work, Hemingway exemplifies the mutual dislike between Margot and Francis, because their personalities are incompatible. Marrying for beauty, Margot is the natural choice for Francis, because “five years before, [she] commanded five thousand dollars as the price of endorsing, with photographs, a beauty product she had never used” (Hemingway 1). Although, Margot is no saint either, because Francis even admits that “he was very wealthy, and would be much wealthier, and he knew that she would not leave him ever know” (Hemingway 13). Obviously, their marriage is based on the value of what the other can
In Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” the author not only focuses on portraying different gender roles but also focuses on the theme of good versus evil within the marriage of Sykes and Delia. Hurston portrays Delia as the good in the marriage and Sykes as the evil. The use of religious symbolism and imagery is the support that makes this theme so strong and influential. As the short story progresses you witness the transition of a clean, moral woman who overcomes evil.
In the end, readers are unsure whether to laugh or cry at the union of Carol and Howard, two people most undoubtedly not in love. Detailed character developments of the confused young adults combined with the brisk, businesslike tone used to describe this disastrous marriage effectively highlight the gap between marrying for love and marrying for ?reason.? As a piece written in the 1950s, when women still belonged to their husbands? households and marriages remained arranged for class and money?s sake, Gallant?s short story excerpt successfully utilizes fictional characters to point out a bigger picture: no human being ought to repress his or her own desires for love in exchange for just an adequate home and a tolerable spouse. May everyone find their own wild passions instead of merely settling for the security and banality of that ?Other Paris.?
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.
In “The Yellow Wall-paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the unnamed female protagonist is going through a rough time in her life. (For now on, this paper will refer to this unnamed character as the “the narrator in ‘Wall-paper,’” short for “The Yellow Wall-paper. The narrator is confined to room to a room with strange wall-paper. This odd wall-paper seems to symbolize the complexity and confusion in her life. In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard must also deal with conflict as she must deal with the death of her spouse. At first there is grief, but then there is the recognition that she will be free. The institute of marriage ties the two heroines of these two short stories together. Like typical young women of the late 19th century, they were married, and during the course of their lives, they were expected to stay married. Unlike today where divorce is commonplace, marriage was a very holy bond and divorce was taboo. This tight bond of marriage caused tension in these two characters.
In the book "The Norton Anthology of short fiction" by Richard Bausch and R.V Cassill you can find a varieties of writes with different way of writings. There are some stories which the protagonist are involved in marriages and are addressed in different ways. In some cases these marriages ends correctly with happiness and love. Even though some of them don't end correctly, we can learn from them and avoid to happen something similar to all of us as a readers.
Marriage is an important theme in the stories Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin. When someone hears the word “marriage”, he thinks of love and protection, but Hurston and Chopin see that differently. According to them, women are trapped in their marriage and they don’t know how to get out of it, so they use language devices to prove their points. Chopin uses personification to show Mrs. Mallard's attitudes towards her husband's death. Louise is mournful in her room alone and she is giving a description of the nature as a scene of her enjoying “the new spring life” and “the delicious breath of rain was in the air” (Chopin1).
The short story “The Storm” by Kate Chopin, deals with the subject of adultery. The story takes place in the early 1900’s. There are two main characters, Calixta (the wife) and Alcee (the former lover). Alcee must take refuge from a passing storm in Calixta’s house, while he is there the two end up making love while Calixta’s husband and son have to wait out the storm at the local store. By doing this Chopin implies the theme that is, adultery is natural and does not necessarily have negative consequences. Through out the story the constant changing of imagery plays a great role in the development of characters and their ability to demonstrate the theme.
In Kate Chopin’s “The Storm”, she offers an intoxicating account of two souls awakened by a storm. The story was composed on July 19, 1898. At this time in history women were considered objects, their sole purpose in life was to serve their husbands. In addition, social stratification was an important aspect of society that determined who they married. Calixta’s marriage could have been a product of an arrangement, making it of unnatural origin. Chopin points out singular characteristics of the storm to shed light on the uncommon strength of a marriage when it is not determined by social norms. Consequently, Chopin brings Calixta and Alceé together to embellish their passion, in which Calixta plays an active role rather than a submissive one.
“Like a river flows so surely to the sea darling, so it goes some things are meant to be.” In literature there have been a copious amount of works that can be attributed to the theme of love and marriage. These works convey the thoughts and actions in which we as people handle every day, and are meant to depict how both love and marriage can effect one’s life. This theme is evident in both “The Storm” by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman; both stories have the underlying theme of love and marriage, but are interpreted in different ways. Both in “The Storm” and in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the women are the main focus of the story. In “The Storm” you have Calixta, a seemingly happy married woman who cheats on her husband with an “old-time infatuation” during a storm, and then proceeds to go about the rest of her day as if nothing has happened when her husband and son return. Then you have “The Yellow Wallpaper” where the narrator—who remains nameless—is basically kept prisoner in her own house by her husband and eventually is driven to the point of insanity.
All in all, Kate Chopin is able to combine two very different aspects of life and involve the relationship and symbolism of the storm to physical needs, sexual desires, and new and profound joy. By bringing these two parallel subjects together, the author is able to show the deeper meaning of one simple word, “storm,” and reveal a story that shows the attitudes and beliefs towards marriage and sex. In doing so, Chopin creates a strong point of view between these two subjects and allows for the view of regulations of sex and marriage to be shown throughout her short story, “The Storm.”
The narrator is confined to a room with strange wall-paper. This odd wall-paper seems to symbolize the complexity and confusion in her life. In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard must also deal with conflict as she must deal with the death of her spouse. At first there is grief, but then there is the recognition that she will be free. The institute of marriage ties the two women of these two short stories together. Like typical young women of the late 19th century, they were married, and during the course of their lives, they were expected to stay married. Unlike today where divorce is commonplace, marriage was a very holy bond and divorce was taboo. This tight bond of marriage caused tension in these two characters. Their personal freedom was severely restricted. For Mrs. Mallard, marriage was a curse to be reckoned with. She knew inside that her marriage was wrong, but she could not express her feelings openly. Her husband was not a bad man, but he was in the way. After hearing about her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard comments, “now there would be no powerful will bending her in that blind persistence with which men … believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature” (Chopin 72), Her husband definitely was a thorn in her
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
Calixta and Alce, the two main characters in the short story “The Storm” by Kate Chopin, are sexual, mature, and knowing adults. By having them discover amazing sex outside their marriages, they return to their own marriages renewed. Chopin openly condones adultery due to the fact that the characters are not punished and in the end “everyone was happy” (paragraph 40) . A common theme of fresh sexuality and desire is seen in this story though symbols and other literary elements. Kate Chopin is an American author that wrote short stories and novels in the 20th century.
While it has traditionally been men who have attached the "ball and chain" philosophy to marriage, Kate Chopin gave readers a woman’s view of how repressive and confining marriage can be for a woman, both spiritually and sexually. While many of her works incorporated the notion of women as repressed beings ready to erupt into a sexual a hurricane, none were as tempestuous as The Storm.
“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.