Paulene Thorp
ENG102-080
November 14, 2015
The Power of Emotions
Selina Jamil’s main argument in her critique of “The Story of An Hour” is that the power of the faculty of emotions has more influence over the faculty of reasoning during the act of perception. Meaning that emotions have a stronger power to influence the mind on how one perceives something. This is represented in her statement of “Revealing her own dynamic and avant-garde understanding, Chopin rejects the tradition of attributing supremacy to the faculty of reason in the act of perception, and she attributes it instead to the faculty of emotions.”(215) During her critic she focuses on Mrs. Mallard inner struggle against what she knows in her mind is socially acceptable but what she wants for herself which is not socially acceptable. Her emotions eventually win against the guilt allowing her to feel “self-assertion” in her perception against the social convention of patriarchy.
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Selina Jamil backs this statement up by stating ‘“Dolan observes, there is a strong relationship between emotion and cognition: “the growth of emotional awareness informs mechanisms that underwrite the emergence of self-identity and social competence.”” Selina Jamil has reinforced this opinion by stating her belief that “The awareness that transforms Mrs. Mallard into Louise, the individual, and that makes her “[see] beyond” the stifling past into a promising future is the product of acute emotions.”(219) At this point in “The Story of An Hour” Mrs. Mallard has now started to perceive life through her emotions and not her mind reasoning about the social conforming. Mrs. Mallard is feeling the power from her emotions standing victorious, and not reasoning about if her emotions