Trapped in Marriage
Relationships are successful when they are filled with trust, love and commitment to each other. Marriages require a lot of commitment and women are required to conform to meet the standards of the society and fill into stereotypical roles. Roles in a marriage can be overwhelming for some, especially for women in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Gail Godwin’s “A Sorrowful Woman” and Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” are both centered around the women in marriage, who feel trapped in their marriage and overwhelmed by the roles they are forced to take on to meet the expectation of the society. In both stories, the protagonists start off as loving wives and devoted to their new family, but it eventually leads them to suffering
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Mallard in “The Story of an Hour” is a victim of a failed marriage and its disappointments, very similarly to the woman in “A Sorrowful Woman”. While marriage is associated with endless happiness, it’s amazing that Mrs. Mallard enjoys it in her marriage for just one hour. It’s important to note that Mrs. Mallard’s happiness reached its full peak when she was told of her husband's death. She showed empathy and grieved in presence of others around her after hearing the news, but her genuine emotions bursted after locking herself in the room. “No one recognizes her true emotions because women fall apart when their spouse dies; it’s required. Marriage is portrayed as a life sentence” (Sustana). Everything was colorful in her life once again, she didn’t have anyone to tell her she has to do certain things anymore, She looks forward to "years to come that would belong to her absolutely”(Chopin). Her short hour of happiness is quickly ruined by her husband yet again. Mr. Mallard appears alive and unharmed to only give an heart attack to poor Mrs. …show more content…
It’s not discussed how the men in the marriage are affected because the men in marriage were only responsible for working a job and bringing money home, While the women occupied several roles such as a mother, daughter-in -law, and also a housewife. These were amongst the most common suitable roles for wives. The two women would only be totally free after death. In “A Sorrowful Woman”, the women locks herself in the room due to being overwhelmed by her duties and responsibilities as a wife and a mother. The woman is still not able to peace, so she ends up killing herself, finally being free of the expectation and the roles conjured up by the gender biased society. The society treated women differently if they chose to do something else with their lives such as go straight into the workforce without
By contrast, Louise Mallard, the protagonist in Chopin's "Story of an Hour", is a moral woman and loving wife, at least by Western standards. Her life is defined by the accepted social ideal of a husband's will as final. She is so inured to this concept that only upon hearing the news of his death does her true feeling of something "too subtle and elusive to name" (199) come forth. What she acknowledges to herself is that her marriage is not happy for her and she often resents her subservient role and "a kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime".
The Story of an Hour is a short story of Ms. Mallard, a woman with a heart condition who receives short term good news. Chopin uses contrast between independence, marriage, and gender to show how hidden emotions can effect a woman’s actions in the time period where women did not have much power or right to speak what came to their mind.
It is difficult to comprehend in today’s world what marriage actually meant to the women of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. One might want to believe in the fairytales of passion and deep abiding love that appear so often in paperback romance novels, but in her short stories, “The Storm” and “The Story of an Hour”, author Kate Chopin offers two much more realistic tales of married life. With these stories, Chopin reveals the truth: marriage was no better than slavery or indentured servitude for women.
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.
Mrs. Mallard in 'The story of an hour', is a woman that has had to live her life composed and in control as the wife of her husband, Brently Mallard. Chopin details Mrs. Mallard's reaction to the news of her husband's death with convolted emotions that were considered appropraite and yet horrifying to the reader. At the end of the story, her death came as no surprise.
Like in many tragically true stories, it would seem Mrs. Mallard 's freedom came too late. Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour” begins by introducing Mrs. Mallard as a person afflicted with heart trouble. The story builds on this by having Mrs. Mallard’s sister Josephine and her husband Richard explain the situation in a very sensitive manner. Their efforts would prove to be in vain however as Mrs. Mallard then proceeds to emotionally break down. The news shocks Mrs. Mallard to her very core and has her at odds with how she should feel now that all was said and done. After coming to terms with her situation, fate delivers its final blow in a cruel and deceitful ploy towards Mrs. Mallards. And with that, Mrs. Mallard 's dies. In her hour of change Mrs. Mallard 's was delicate, thoughtful and excitable.
In the story “Story of an Hour” Kate Chopin creates a character that has an interesting reaction to her husband's death. The character that Chopin created was named Mrs. Louise Mallard. Mrs. Mallard was married to her husband Brently Mallard. They lived in the 1890’s, which is the 19th century. Married women stayed at home and gave all of their attention to their husbands.
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
Kate Chopin’s story, "The Story of an Hour," may seem to be about Mrs. Mallard’s unexpected and ironic reactions to the news of her husband’s untimely death due to a railroad disaster. At least that’s what I thought when I read the story. It seemed to me that she led a normal life with a normal marriage. She had a stable home life with a kind, loving husband who cared for her. She seemed to love him, sometimes. She had some kind of "heart trouble" (Chopin 25) that didn’t really affect her physically, until the very end. I thought Mrs. Mallard would have been saddened and filled with grief for an adequate period of time after her spouse died, but her grief passed quickly, and she embraced a new life that she seemed to be content with. Therefore I believe there is good evidence that Mrs. Mallard was an ungrateful woman who did not appreciate her husband or his love for her. That evidence is found in her selfish behavior after the death of her husband, Brently Mallard.
“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.
Marriage was an oppressor to Chopin, she had been a victim of this institution. Being a victim of marriage, Chopin's "Story of an Hour," is an expression of her belief that, marriage is an institution that oppresses, represses, and is a source of discontent among human beings. Mrs. Mallard loved her husband. She wept at once. This was her first response to the news of his death.
Situational irony is used in "The Story of an Hour" through Mrs. Mallard's reaction to her husband's death and the description of the settings around her at this time. Upon hearing the news of her husband's death, Mrs. Mallard "wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment" (Chopin 213). It appeared to everyone that as a result of her husband's death, Mrs. Mallard was incredibly sad. She insisted upon being alone and retreated to her room. The sort of reaction she had seems like one typical to someone who had just lost a loved one. She experienced grief and shock. However, once she is alone in her room, the reader discovers another side of her emotions. Once she calms down, she whispers "Free, free, free" (Chopin 214), and the reader realizes that she is not having a typical reaction. Instead of being saddened by the loss of her husband, Mrs. Mallard is relieved. "She saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome" (Chopin 214). Mrs. Mallard, instead of wondering who will support her in years to come, realizes that she will have no one binding her a...
In her story “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin (1894) uses imagery and descriptive detail to contrast the rich possibilities for which Mrs. Mallard yearns, given the drab reality of her everyday life. Chopin utilizes explicit words to provide the reader a background on Mrs. Mallard’s position. Chopin uses “She wept at once,” to describe Mrs. Mallard’s emotional reaction once she was told her husband had been “Killed.” Mrs. Mallard cared for and loved her husband; being married was the only way of life that she knew.
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.
Kate Chopin employs the tool of irony in "The Story of an Hour" to carefully convey the problem inherent in women's unequal role in marital relationships. Chopin develops a careful plot in order to demonstrate this idea, one not socially acceptable at the end of the 19th century, and unfortunately, a concept that still does not appreciate widespread acceptance today, 100 years later as we near the end of the 20th century. Louise Mallard's death, foreshadowed in the initial line "Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with heart trouble" takes on quite a different meaning when the plot twists and the context of her sudden death is presented unexpectedly, not upon her shock at her husband's death, but instead in her inability to endure the fact that he lives.