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Relationships In 'The Story Of An Hour, And' Hills Like White Elephants?

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Relationships are complicated, but can you imagine what it would have been like back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s? Women were still expected to live in the stereotypical role where men were in charge. Men still have a lot of power, but women are becoming more and more independent. However, it is interesting to differentiate how a woman author and a man author portray relationships. In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” there are different relationship dynamics portrayed. The relationship in “Hills Like White Elephants” portrays a young couple dealing with the issue of abortion with a lot of tension. In “The Story of an Hour,” Chopin portrays the relationship between an older couple, and the wife …show more content…

The relationship was not necessarily abusive; however, it seems as though there is some sort of strain. Perhaps, Brently keeps Louise tied down or he thinks of her a stereotypical woman. Everyone seems to believe that Louise is too fragile because of her hear. Because Louise has heart trouble, her sister, Josephine, has to break the news to her that Brently has seemed to have died from a railroad accident. Either way, Louise knows that she should be upset. At first, she does start crying, but after having some time to herself, she begins to whisper “Free!” (Chopin 426). Louise understands that she has this new-found freedom from the oppression of Brently, and that is why she seems both happy and upset. Even though he loved her, he still oppressed her. This leads to the conclusion that even though Brently was kind with his “tender hands” (Chopin 426) he still had the ability to oppress his wife even if he did not mean to. In the end, Brently is miraculously not dead and returns. However, upon the sight of him, Louise has a heart attack. It can be interpreted that this heart attack was out of

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Louise is able to prove why young children are incapable of seeing how cruel their actions can be at times. When Anne

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Their relationship is distant, and Louise seems to treat Darling in a condescending way, as if he’s a child or a chore to be around, perhaps due to the fact that they can’t communicate as well as they used to. Darling soon gets a job offer of being a tailor’s representative, and the tension in their marriage shows again. When he tells Louise about the offer he speaks nervously. She, on the other hand, acts very artificially towards him (“He looked at her face, lovelier now at thirty-five than it had ever been before, but fogged over now as it had been for five years with a kind of patient, kindly, remote boredom.)

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As the mother, she plays a major role in her children’s lives. In the novella, Louise is characterized as someone who is superficial and vain. She believed that beauty was more important than anything

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Authors, especially female authors, have long used their writing to emphasize and analyze the feminist issues that characterize society, both in the past and the present. Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Susan Glaspell wrote narratives that best examined feminist movements through the unreliable minds of their characters. In all three stories, “The Story of an Hour”, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and “A Jury of Her Peers”, the authors use characterization, symbolism, and foreshadowing to describe the characters’ apparent psychosis or unreasonable behavior to shed light on the social issues that characterized the late 19th century and early 20th century. Penning many stories that demonstrate her opinions on the social issues of the era,

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Freedom within Hills like White Elephants and Story of an Hour Freedom: the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Many people strive for it, but it is nerveless undefined. Everyone wants to be free,

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Relationships are the core of everything we do in life. We love someone, so we do something for them; we value someone 's opinion, so we respect them; we dislike someone, so we avoid them. Relationships cause people to act on their emotions which impact how and why they do the things they do. Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants” is about a couple trying to come to a conclusion on a delicate matter. While the man strongly promotes his opinion the girl is hesitant but wants to do whatever will make him happy.

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Chopin may suggest that Mrs. Mallard feels restricted to live her life with a partner in her life. Hemmingway does not reveal the thoughts of the characters leaving readers at suspense. Readers must interpret what is going on between the girlfriend and her boyfriend in Hills Like White Elephants (Hemmingway). The white elephants in his story represent fertility. Both the woman and her boyfriend struggle to speak of abortion.

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This was bitter irony since everyone thought Louise died from being excited to see her husband when she really died from not wanting to see him. “She thought of Leonce and the children. They were part of her life. But they need not have thought that they could possess her, body and soul. ”(Chopin 137).

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In order not to displease her mother, but still satisfy her hunger, Louise begins sneaking food when no one is watching. This eventually leads to hoarding food such as the hidden candy, which she will later eat alone in her bed in the dark. The father is introduced at the beginning of the story and portrayed by Dubus as loving and yet misguided. This is shown when

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6. In daily life happily ever afters are hard to come by, and this is reflected in many famous literary works such as “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury and “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams. Both texts tell of the protagonists, Guy Montag and Blanche DuBois, and their struggle to resolve their personal goals. But throughout the texts they are met by complications time and time again as they handle problems badly and are dependent on others to overcome their problems.

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Although there is no clear statement that shows Louise to have an oppressive marriage, there are ambiguous statements about the marriage that show she feels caged. During the event of finding out about Brently’s death, Louise did not respond “as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden wild abandonment” (Chopin), due to Brently’s death she is finally able to let out emotions that she has held in for so many years of being a dutiful wife. Once Louise is left alone to grieve she reflects upon her feelings and her marriage. The narrator points out that Louise knows she will cry again for him when she sees his funeral, remembering his “kind, tender hands...the face that had never looked save with love upon her” (Chopin).

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In “ Desiree’s Baby” and “ The Story of An Hour” written by Kate Chopin the audience analyzes the themes of love and marriage presented by the author in a unique style that is different from other authors during this time period. The similarities that the two short stories address include both of the women who happen to be young wives living under a male dominated culture as well as being under the control of their husbands whom they loved. However, the themes of the two stories are different. In “Desiree’s Baby” the theme portrays cruelty that is expressed through racial prejudice as well as being “blinded” by the ones you love, as compared to “ The Story of An Hour” which gives the reader a chance to explore the issue of forbidden joy in independence, and oppressiveness in marriage.

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This shows a balance between gender roles, as well as the embracing progressive changes within culture and society. In the story “The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin, a third-person omniscient narrator, relates how Mrs. Louise Mallard, the protagonist, experiences the euphoria of freedom rather than the grief of loneliness after hearing about her husband’s death. Later, when Mrs. Mallard discovers that her husband, Mr. Brently Mallard, still lives, she realizes that all her aspiration for freedom has gone. The shock and disappointment kills Mrs. Mallard.

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Mrs. Baroda feels inner conflict with wanting to be with her husband’s friend, but also her duty as a woman in society. Within “A Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard faces a similar situation when she wants the freedom and autonomy from her husband. Through these works of Kate Chopin, the reader can see that the women protagonists face inner dispute, self-realization, and resolution with those feelings. In “A Respectable Woman” by Kate Chopin, Mrs. Baroda struggles with her desires of wanting to be free from her marriage, but she doesn’t want to break society’s role for her.

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The role of women in literature crosses many broad spectrums in works of the past and present. Women are often portrayed as weak and feeble individuals that submit to the situations around them, but in many cases women are shown to be strong, independent individuals. This is a common theme that has appeared many times in literature. Across all literature, there is a common element that causes the suffering and pain of women. This catalyst, the thing that initiates the suffering of women, is essentially always in the form of a man.

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