Preview

Story Of An Hour And The Chrysanthemums

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
141 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Story Of An Hour And The Chrysanthemums
“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, is about a smart and independent woman who is held back from her marriage. This story has a solid connection to John Steinbeck’s, “The Chrysanthemums”. These stories share a female main character who struggle with being content with their lives as a wife. Both of the authors from these short stories centralize their theme around how society depreciates woman in the early 1900’s. Women during this time had fewer rights and were treated differently than how women are treated in this day and age. These stories do share a similar theme they also differentiate in many ways due to the sexes of the authors and time they are written. The characterization goes from the dissatisfaction of their marriage, to an

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939) is a fascinating piece of cinema, due to it's length (running just over 2 hour) and few amount of shots, 140. This film is considered Myzoguchi's masterpiece and encompasses most of his cinematic techniques and qualities in one film.…

    • 387 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the nineteenth century men have been known to be the dominant sex, while women are considered inferior. As a result, women have been oppressed and stereotyped as being weak, timid, as well as emotionally unstable. Therefore, they are wedded, and become housewives, due to the perception that women depend on men to survive. Consequently, women feel that their husbands are controlling and long for their freedom, which was the case in “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The short stories reveal how oppression leads to Mrs. Mallard and the narrator feeling unsatisfied and miserable with their lives. The main character in “The Story of An Hour” and “The Yellow Wall-Paper” display…

    • 136 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout history, women have been oppressed because they did not have the same rights as men. Thus, they have suffered unfair treatment such as not being able to vote, having their voices heard in the political sphere because of their gender and so on. Therefore, feminist criticism, which focuses on the women’s perspective, gradually formed and became quickly integrated into the literary works such as Kate Chopin’s short stories, “The Story of an Hour” and “Desiree’s Baby”. Kate Chopin is an American author who advocated that women and men both should have right of equality and freedom. In her short story, “The Story of an Hour”, Kate Chopin describes a young wife who has heart disease which is why her sister and…

    • 1328 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kate Chopin's “The Story of an Hour” and Gail Godwin’s “A Sorrowful Woman” are similar pieces of literary work. Both stories offer a revealing glimpse of extremely unhappy marriages due to being forced into stereotypical roles. Both stories portray women, who are trapped in their marriages and trapped in their socially expected matriarchal characters. They are identified by their role as a wife and mother.…

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Published in 1894, “The Story of an Hour,” has endured longer than the title would indicate and is a declaration of the support of independence for women from its author Kate Chopin. Having read this story before in other courses, and having spoken at length about how Chopin was in support of the idea of woman’s suffrage even before the suffrage movement caught hold, this story leaves a lasting impression and resonates deeper with me every time I read it. Chopin uses her work to illuminate the joy of independence and the oppression that marriage can bring. Whether intentional or unintentional, her message is not only meant for women but, extends to men as well. It is a timeless theme that anyone can learn from in every age. By her use of various literary elements such as, structure, and style, and the use of rhetorical devises such as pathos Chopin creates a work that provokes deeper though and asks a reader to delve into the emotional struggle of her character Mrs. Louise…

    • 679 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck has been labeled as a feminist story for its commentary on patriarchy and feminine self expression in the time of the story. This story highlights a strong woman’s attempt to break out of the shackles she has lived in for all of her life. The story comments on and symbolizes gender roles, female sexuality and character development.…

    • 978 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    delivers to the audience her thoughts and underlying emotions of being a woman in a “man’s world.” The chrysanthemums reflects Elisa’s character and her dreams of being free to grow, make decisions, free to travel, make her own money and most of all the desire to be attractive. Elisa feels closed in and secluded from the rest of the world, just as Steinbeck describes the atmosphere at the introduction of the story, “The high grey-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world” (192).…

    • 1289 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Girl by kincaid

    • 820 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Both Kincaid and Chopin wrote from their own experiences to portray a theme of feminism and women breaking away from stereotypes from their time periods. The Story of an Hour is the storyof a womans excitement for freedom from her husbands control. This story criticizes the sacrifices made by women to pleasethe stereotypes society had set, and that it attacks marriages where one personcontrols the relationship. Mrs. Mallards death at the end ofthe story is said to be brought on by the pain Mrs. Mallard felt when the shelost the joy and individuality she gained from her husbands death and not from happiness and relief of seeing her husband alive. Mrs. Mallards excitement for freedom illustrates how women of the timefelt about their male-dominated society. The women were ready to break free andexperience a more equalized society.…

    • 820 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, was published over a century ago in 1894, but even with its age the story manages to be relevant in modern times. Upon first glance the short story is fleeting at only two pages in length and lasts for only an hour and due to this it could be seen as simple. This short story tells the tale of Louise Mallard, who has heart issues, learns from her sister Josephine that her husband, Brently Mallard was killed in train accident. Upon hearing this terrible news, she immediately started to cry before retreating to her room. In her room Louise Mallard goes through a profound awakening. Sometime later, Josephine goes and gets Louise from her room and upon going down the stairs; Louise is shocked to see her reportedly dead husband coming into their home. Mrs. Mallard suddenly dies, which doctors attributed to her heart troubles. Although at first this story seems simple, but surprisingly “The Story of an Hour” is a deep and symbolic story, full of irony and feminist themes of freedom and self awareness.…

    • 2454 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mallard's Awakening

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Kate Chopin’s,”The Story of an Hour,” is an ironic and symbolic story as it portrays an innuendo of repression through the example married women. Chopin’s short story begins with Mrs. Mallard becoming lurid as she hears of her husband's death. Consequently, Mrs. Mallard underwent changes from depressed to an elated state of emotion. Chopin displayed Mrs. Mallards’ grievances and attitude towards freedom through her diction. Just as Mrs. Mallard perceived that she gained her freedom, news was delivered to her stating Brently Mallard was alive. Without hesitation Mrs. Mallard died not only because her freedom was gone, but because she felt guilty when she happily reflected upon her husband's death. Presumably, the cause of Mrs. Mallard's death was heart disease, thus making Chopin’s…

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are many different tones, themes, characters, and symbolism in the short story “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin explains the story of a negative view of marriage by showing the reader with a woman who is overjoyed that her husband has died, also the characters in the story itself goes through multiply changes from fear to depression to finally freedom. The lone character, who goes through the most change be far throughout the entire story is the main character Mrs. Louise Mallard. This transformation doesn’t just help change the character of Louise Mallard, further the themes of the story and solidify the tones that the author are trying to set for the story.…

    • 1111 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Women have been viewed as the inferior sex in the domestic sphere for ages and the protagonists in Kate Chopin's “The Story of an Hour” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” are both examples of women suffering in their own marriages. Both protagonists of the stories have their lives ruined through the confinement that they feel. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator listens to her husband’s suggestions as she is expected to do, which slowly makes her insane. While in “The Story of an Hour,” the return of the confinement in Mrs. Mallard's life literally kills her. While it is easy to blame the overpowering image of the men in both of these stories for the oppression the protagonists faced, the authors make it clear through…

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Story Of An Hour Analysis

    • 1472 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The author, Kate Chopin uses marriage to show how powerless women were compared to men during the late eighteen hundreds in her short story entitled, “The Story of An Hour “. At the beginning of the story the main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard has a heart condition. Due to her illness, her sister Josephine and her husband's friend Richards has the hard task to tell Louise that her husband Brently Mallard has died in a train wreck. During this first hour Mrs. Mallard experiences the sorrow of her husband's death and the loneliness she would feel, but also the conflicting and exciting feelings of being able to feel alive and the freedom she will have in the future being alone without her husband.…

    • 1472 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The 1930’s was a period of empowerment for women. The Great Depression gave women a taste of what life would be like as strong, independent people. However, when the Great Depression came to an end life returned to the way things were. In American author John Steinbeck’s short story “The Chrysanthemums” (1938), he explores the life of a woman desperate for independence from a world run by men. Steinbeck uses symbolism to illustrate a woman’s search for fulfilment in a male dominated society.…

    • 1602 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    As of today, women have many rights and tend to have longer happier marriages. Even so this wasn't always the case. Women were once not able to do something as simple as voting. They were given positions of lesser status in their personal, and professional lives. So from that oppression rose two works of literature which are Trifles (written by Susan Glaspell) and The Story of an Hour (written by Kate Chopin). I chose to compare The Story of an Hour with Trifles because The Story of an Hour had an interesting twist and I could see that deep, intricate thought was put into it. This research paper will examine the similarities and the differences between these two bodies of work. Since both are feminist works of literature, spotting similarities…

    • 1980 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays