The author's metaphor when stating, “There was nothing to her but air,” signifies his mother’s emptiness and lack of consciousness after her son’s departure as she is described as filled with no emotion. Overall, this metaphor increases the reader’s empathy and sadness towards her state of mind as she becomes increasingly depressed. The simile, “she walked bent over like an old woman,” describes his mother’s depressive state and overall brokenness to aid the reader’s emotional understanding of the effect of Saul’s brother leaving. In addition, the first-person perspective of Saul’s story engages the reader’s ability to empathize and build a connection with him as he goes through life’s challenges. As readers experience a close-up understanding of Saul and his emotional and physical distress, readers can connect their troubles to his.…
She is pretty, but moderately pretty, not overdone or arrogant. The husband, however, has a "round, self-satisfied face." He is haughty and overconfident. The reader recognizes his self-centeredness and demeans him for it. The reader is told that the woman provides a "small but glossy birthday cake" for her husband's "Occasion." There is "one pink candle" in the center of the cake. The cake's appearance parallels with that of the wife's. Both are small and modest yet in their own way appealing. The wife has supplied a "little surprise" for the one she loves and she is very proud of it. The others dining at the restaurant react with a "pattering of applause" to support the woman and encourage her. The reader echoes this applause in his own mind in order to also help the woman. However, the reader at once discovers that the man "was not pleased." Brush then quotes the thoughts of the reader towards the husband's behavior with the reaction of "Oh, now, don't be like that." The author uses the words that she knows are in the mind of the reader. The woman is then seen to be crying "all to herself." Her husband has deserted her and she is left alone "under the gay big brim of her best…
“And yet she had loved him-sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being” (Chopin 279). This quote shows how she really felt about her husband. The main reason she felt better though was because she realized she was free to do as she please without being controlled by her husband. She actually She is so excited to live the rest of her life with this new freedom and starts planning how she would spend her time.…
Initially the mansion where the narrator stays looks beautiful to her but later the house seems to look like a prison to her. We find the narrator to complain her husband that she is sick, but her husband who is a physician suggest that she is suffering temporary nervous depression and suggest that she should take complete rest. The narrator is especially asked not to use her imaginative power in writing as she has a habit of maintaining a diary. The husband did not tried to understand that through writing she achieves mental relief. We can observe in the story when the women tries to tell her husband how she feels the husband stops her and tell that she should not think much all she need is rest. Like this the husband prevents the wife from expressing her inner…
The narrator is the son of the mother in the story and he feels awful for what he has thought about his mother. He says he has “unworthy feelings” as he loves his mother but also realizes she needs to leave in order for him to have his own life. The narrator stands for the other theme of remorse and guilt. He is guilty of much concerning his mother and he realizes she is “all the family I have left” (Carver, 588). Torn between the two women in his life, he cannot decide if he should move to where his mother is or if he should stay with his girlfriend. As depicted in the text, he feels torn about “the woman who brought me into this life and this other woman I picked up with less than a year ago” (Carver, 589). The narrator knows this for sure when he says they could “tear me apart” (Carver 589). The narrator’s ultimate decision is to either move back with his mother or to start his own life and live with his girlfriend, Jill. The narrator feels entrapped inside psychological boxes or in other words, his own…
(lines14-17).” This quote illustrates the feeling of desperation and sadness the wife feels. Even though she is in great despair, she slowly starts to turn the situation around and take her new found destiny with grace and composure. Although she is upset she is poised in a situation full of sorrow.…
Every day she would brush her hair in the late afternoon sun. She would briefly see her husband and son and night. One night she told her husband that she could no longer see the boy, so the boy and husband slipped notes to her under the door. Then one night when she notes were slipped to her, she went to the corner of the room to get away from them, like she couldn’t stand the notes. Then one day the husband and son came home to find that woman had made five loaves of bread, ham, turkey, three different pies, the boy’s favorite custard, two weeks of fresh laundry, and other things were made for them. The husband goes to her room only to find that she is dead. I believe that she had killed herself because it became too much for her to handle even though she wasn’t really interacting with them at all. The first sentence says that “there was a wife and mother once too many times.” I believe that this means that she shouldn’t have been a wife or a mother to begin…
introduces us to a character who yearns to be free from her husband and mother.…
Situationally irony in this story is how she believes that her husband has passed away although he’s still alive. She comes up with all these ideas of liberation of her relationship status. Being that he has been a kind man, who once loved her, she sees his death as a sign of freedom. “And yet she had loved him” sometimes, but often had not. Does it really matter! Because what could love count in the control and declaration which is recognized as the most must powerful impulse of her?! She had never lived the life she had always wished. Every process and steps she had done during this amount of time were taken away from her when her husband appears through the door.…
Many times throughout Anglo-Saxon literature, exile has been a prevalent detail which set a deep, dark tone for the story which would follow. These stories typically follow a character exiled by a circumstance, unable to return to their life prior. In The Wanderer, the main character is alone due to all his people dying. With his kinsman and his lord dead, he has nowhere to go, and nobody to go to. He spends his time drifting, lamenting over his past while in search of a new lord.…
In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin it starts off by letting you some of the characters such as her sister Josephine and her husband's friend Richards. They also make sure they to let you know that Mrs. Mallard, the main character in the story, “was afflicted with a heart trouble and that great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death” (Chopin 71). After reading this sentence I began to wonder how she was going to take the news of her husband's death. I thought she was definitely going to take it horribly and that it was going to affect her health somehow. Sure enough as soon as she heard the news “she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone, She would have no one follow her” (Chopin 72).…
The Story of an Hour is a short story which describes the emotional response a widow expresses both initially and within the time of an hour after she is notified of her husband’s tragic death. The thing which makes the story so attractive is the anticipation of the reaction of the widower, Mrs. Mallard. Will her heart cease to beat due to a broken heart and her affliction? Will the death of her husband anger her or will she be overcome with sorrow? Also, the imagery described is easy to imagine as most everyone has experienced these sensations, for example, “…The delicious breath of rain was in the air… and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves” (Clugston, R.W. 2010). The situation itself, maybe easy to relate to for most individuals, as most everyone has experienced the loss of a loved one. The ability of the reader to connect to the environment and the main character is engaging, enticing the reader to…
The theme of this story is a woman finding herself and her freedom that she had longed for. She may have been physically or verbally abused, or just fell out of love with her husband and wanted something new for her. Conflict and epiphany were two literary words that were used within this short story as Mrs. Mallard came to grips with her feelings, not knowing whether to be sad or to be happy. She settled with the latter and was essentially glad that she was free from a husband that she had fallen out of love with. Described throughout were the feelings that were overcoming her and in what stages they came. The author gave a clear understanding of how Mrs. Mallard felt, and that it was not easy for her to come to the conclusion in which she…
The loss of one’s spouse is surely a terrible thing. To lose the one you love, and to become a widow must be heart-breaking. But can the death of a woman’s husband lead to freedom? In “The story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin we meet a woman whose husband has tragically died in a railroad disaster. The story is about a widow, and how she handles the death of her husband.…
”Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble1:” Mrs. Mallard’s heart is weak, so everybody has to treat her gently and carefully. According to a newspaper office, Mrs. Mallard’s husband was killed in a train accident. Mr. Mallard’s friend, Mr. Richards was in the newspaper office when he saw the report. He saw Mr. Mallard’s name on the list of those people who had died in the train accident. Mr. Richards handed over the sad news to Mrs. Mallard’s sister, Josephine. Josephine informed in broken sentences to Mrs. Mallard about her husband’s death. Mrs. Mallard sobbed in her sister’s arm and went upstairs to another room alone. The room had an open window, and a comfortable roomy armchair2. Mrs. Mallard gazed out of the window and realized that she was a free woman and the way she described everything outside the window, seemed like she could see a new beginning, an opportunity to freedom. Example from the short story: “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. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves:”3…