Literary Analysis Paper Outline This paper will analyze two very different stories: Alice Munro’s Boys and Girls, and Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour. Both stories deal with emotions felt during a major life change. The girl in Boys and Girls is coping with her emotional and physical changes as she goes from a being girl to a young woman. Louise Mallard, in The Story of an Hour, is coping with the sudden death of her husband, the complex emotions she feels at that loss and the jubilation she feels at suddenly gaining her freedom. The authors show how each the main character in each story bucks traditional gender roles, but they do so at different stages in their lives.
I. Coming of Age: Acceptance, the Hard Way
II. Alice Munro’s
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This is in great contrast to the strong-willed tomboy we see at the beginning of the story.
VI. As the story begins, the girl is a strong-willed tomboy who rejects anything that has to do with traditional gender roles. By the end of the story, the changes to her have become apparent, and she has come to accept them.
I. What Cost Freedom
II. Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour, is a coming of age story as well. It tells the story of a repressed woman, who for a fleeting moment gets a glimpse of freedom, and all in entails. Louise Mallard is given the news of her husband’s sudden death. Afflicted with heart trouble, her sister tries to break the news to her gently. After shedding the obligatory tears in front of her sister and her husband’s friend Richards, she retreats to her room alone, and is confronted with conflicting feelings of her husband’s passing. As a woman that was possibly forced into an arranged marriage, she is facing freedom for the first time in years. It a frightening yet liberating prospect for her, and the emotions she feels range from sadness to