Story Of An Hour And Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants '

Throughout Kate Chopin’s, “Story of an Hour” and Ernest Hemingway's “HIlls like white elephants”, the reader begins to understand the struggle women encounter in a male dominated society. In order to gain a voice. Women in this time were viewed as citizens, but only in certain aspects. Women were prohibited from voting and were stripped of other rights ; more or less they were treated as second class citizens. Although times have changed and a womans role in society has progressed greatly, women still take a backseat in this sexist world.

In “Story of an hour”Kate Chopin flawlessly delivers a compelling short story. The story gives the reader a brief glimpse of the struggle women encounter through marriage. The main character Louise Mallard, was your typical late 1800’s and early 1900’s housewife. That means she did what she was told, her only

Unlike most women “Mrs. Mallard feels it more important to be an individual than to be a woman (or at least a mother-woman), but she is in deep water. Unassisted, she has to create her own role and status and define her aims; she must fight society’s opposition as well as her own feeling of insecurity and guilt, and—more than a man—she suffers and assumes sole responsibility for her life” (Wan 2), Mrs. Mallard despised marriage and was highly displeased with her life. When she was given the horrible news of her husband's death “she did not hear the story as many women have heard the same” (Chopin 1) .Though she wept for her husband's death, Mrs.Mallard was enlightened by the thought of a new life were “there would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature” (Wan 2). Stricken with conflicting emotions Mrs. Mallard retreats to her room where she can be alone. As she sits