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Story Of An Hour Comparative Essay

1868 Words8 Pages

Both Kate Chopin and Guy de Maupassant present the struggles women in the late 19th century faced in order to gain happiness. In The Story of an Hour, Kate Chopin presents a woman who only experiences one hour of pure happiness throughout her whole marriage. Guy de Maupassant introduces in The Necklace a woman named Mathilde Loisel for whom happiness completely depends on her material wealth. The two protagonists encounter different situations and have different yearnings, however they both achieve happiness in their own ways for a brief moment.

The Story of an Hour was written in 1894, at a time where women barely had any rights or freedom; married women had to live their lives imprisoned in their homes carrying out domestic chores and looking …show more content…

Mallard’s (Louise Mallard) entrapment in her own marriage. She only escapes that entrapment and feels joy when her sister reveals the news of her husband’s death to her. The first hint showing us that she perceived this message differently from other women in her time is when Kate Chopin uses this complex sentence “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance” to describe her initial reaction. Later, this sense of aberration is expanded when it mentions “facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair”. The adjectives “open” and “comfortable” are symbolic as they give positive connotations, which juxtaposes with the tragic moment the readers would perceive this as. It is through this “open window”, sitting on this "comfortable, roomy chair” where Mrs. Mallard starts to see symbols of freedom. “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air.” The semantic field of nature, together with the noun “spring” reveals the freedom she feels and symbolises her excitement and chance of new life. Furthermore, the vivid imagery of the “patches of blue sky” in the following paragraph represents the boundless opportunities waiting for Mrs. Mallard. By using these language techniques, Kate Chopin effectively mirrors the sudden change of emotions Mrs. Mallard experiences in a brief period of time, thus creating a more dramatic effect on the

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