Comparing Story Of An Hour And Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle
By the time she was writing essays, Kate Chopin was not read nor recognized as a major American literature author. Wrote in 1894, the short novel entitled “The Story of an Hour” was not very successful, and it has not spread out of the area of Louisiana. Although the importance of Kate Chopin in our world does not have to be proved thanks to feminist movements, her literary qualities were overlooked at that time.
On the opposite, Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” wrote in 1819, has become a best-seller book that has quickly matched a large audience on the entire eastern coast, but also in Great Britain and Deutschland. The main character that Irving has invented for the story, Rip Van Winkle, has become very famous since, and it has inspired numerous artistic works such as movies, theatre plays, operas and TV shows.
At first, those …show more content…
two authors and principally the two novels does not seem to have many similarities, but I have found several themes that they both share, and that I found interesting for my process of understanding American History and Culture.
The first interesting point to emphasize when linking the two readings was the description of marriage in the society. In the two essays, the image of marriage that we can feel through the main characters is the sensation of oppression created by the union. Rip Van Winkle and Mrs Louise Mallard both describe their marital relationship as living prisons. Even if it is more accentuated in The Story of an Hour, Irving’s main character’s union does not seem better. Actually, even if the story is not about marriage, there are some precise quotations that describe the relationship between Rip Van Winkle and his wife.
“It is a common wish of all henpecked husbands in the neighbourhood, when life hangs heavy on their hands that they might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkle’s flagon».
“A termagant wife may therefore, in some respect, be considered a tolerable blessing; and if so, Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed”.
“Certain it is that he was a great favourite among all the good wives of the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles, and never failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle”.
I found the sarcastic tone that is used by Washington Irving in the novel very amusing, and I believe that this is a way for the author to criticize indirectly some traits of the society, without been aggressive.
This very bad image of marriage that I felt through the reading has interpellated me, because that was not the view I had of this period. In fact, I started studying American history this semester, and I am trying to integrate the picture of the society at that period. Knowing that the population was strongly influenced by religious ideologies at that time, I realized the importance of such speeches in this particular context. The Story of an Hour is essentially about the desire for a women and furthermore men to more freedom from society, and it is not complicated to see why the book did not met a large audience:
“But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would be hers absolutely”. This feeling of liberty towards her companion, and also towards society in its whole, is extremely contemporary, and it is hard to believe that the story was written more than a hundred years
ago.
If we analyse the context in which the stories were written, we can see the gap that exists between the ideas of the common American citizens and the writers. In a very puritan and conservative America, those two authors, and especially Kate Chopin are visionaries, thank to her ability to look up on societal issue. She is one of those who had paved the way for upcoming feminists movements, by describing in such an intense way what millions of women where feeling. This is more impressive knowing that she was not living the same situation with her household. The detailed description along with the emotion transmitted through the reading with the sentence structure and the use of the third person narrative gave me a strong sensation of reality. Reading an 1894 novel that describes the crisis of the “institution” of marriage that we are facing nowadays was a very pleasant surprise for me.
On the opposite, Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” wrote in 1819, has become a best-seller book that has quickly matched a large audience on the entire eastern coast, but also in Great Britain and Deutschland. The main character that Irving has invented for the story, Rip Van Winkle, has become very famous since, and it has inspired numerous artistic works such as movies, theatre plays, operas and TV shows.
At first, those …show more content…
two authors and principally the two novels does not seem to have many similarities, but I have found several themes that they both share, and that I found interesting for my process of understanding American History and Culture.
The first interesting point to emphasize when linking the two readings was the description of marriage in the society. In the two essays, the image of marriage that we can feel through the main characters is the sensation of oppression created by the union. Rip Van Winkle and Mrs Louise Mallard both describe their marital relationship as living prisons. Even if it is more accentuated in The Story of an Hour, Irving’s main character’s union does not seem better. Actually, even if the story is not about marriage, there are some precise quotations that describe the relationship between Rip Van Winkle and his wife.
“It is a common wish of all henpecked husbands in the neighbourhood, when life hangs heavy on their hands that they might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkle’s flagon».
“A termagant wife may therefore, in some respect, be considered a tolerable blessing; and if so, Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed”.
“Certain it is that he was a great favourite among all the good wives of the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles, and never failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle”.
I found the sarcastic tone that is used by Washington Irving in the novel very amusing, and I believe that this is a way for the author to criticize indirectly some traits of the society, without been aggressive.
This very bad image of marriage that I felt through the reading has interpellated me, because that was not the view I had of this period. In fact, I started studying American history this semester, and I am trying to integrate the picture of the society at that period. Knowing that the population was strongly influenced by religious ideologies at that time, I realized the importance of such speeches in this particular context. The Story of an Hour is essentially about the desire for a women and furthermore men to more freedom from society, and it is not complicated to see why the book did not met a large audience:
“But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would be hers absolutely”. This feeling of liberty towards her companion, and also towards society in its whole, is extremely contemporary, and it is hard to believe that the story was written more than a hundred years
ago.
If we analyse the context in which the stories were written, we can see the gap that exists between the ideas of the common American citizens and the writers. In a very puritan and conservative America, those two authors, and especially Kate Chopin are visionaries, thank to her ability to look up on societal issue. She is one of those who had paved the way for upcoming feminists movements, by describing in such an intense way what millions of women where feeling. This is more impressive knowing that she was not living the same situation with her household. The detailed description along with the emotion transmitted through the reading with the sentence structure and the use of the third person narrative gave me a strong sensation of reality. Reading an 1894 novel that describes the crisis of the “institution” of marriage that we are facing nowadays was a very pleasant surprise for me.