Story Of An Hour Sacrifice

Paul Rubio
Professor Muñoz
English 028
3 April 2015 It Takes More than Commitment and Sacrifice to Make a Happy Marriage Commitment and sacrifice in a marriage are not always enough to keep a marriage happy and healthy. “Compromise in marriage is essential to maintain a happy and healthy relationship. Without compromise, one spouse will generally feel subjugated, and may grow bitter of his or her partner.” Jenny Franchot. Her quotation states that a good marriage only works, if the spouse compromises with each other. To illustrate this claim, we use the short stories of Heinrich Boll “Like a Bad Dream” which tells the story of a unnamed character who narrates how the actions of his wife change the way he feels about her. And the short story of Kate Chopin “The Story of an Hour” which tells the story of
Ms. Mallard, who receives the news that her husband was probably dead. “Like a Bad Dream” is the best short story that proves Franchot’s quotation against the short story “The Story of an Hour”. The character of Boll’s short story is the one that shows more commitment to his marriage, but in Chopin’s short story, the narrator does not describe the marriage of the main character of Mrs. Mallard.
The story of Heinrich Boll “Like a Bad Dream” is narrated by an unnamed character that makes commitments to his wife Bertha, in order to keep her happy. The story takes place in Germany after World War II, and it begins when the narrator and his wife are waiting for the Zumpens to come for dinner at their house and discuss a contract offer. As the narrator tells how tense he was, he states, “Bertha had decided what I was to wear: a dark jacket, trousers a shade lighter, and a conservative tie” (127). We can see from this detail that he and his wife are showing commitment to each other.
But as the story goes on, we begin to see he is the only one making commitments on his marriage.
After the Zumpens finished dinner and left, his wife begins to ask him why he didn’t talk about the contract to Mr. Zumpen and she forces him to go to the Zumpens house, “’What’s up?’ I asked. ‘We have to go to over there, of course’ she said.”(128). with this, we see that the narrator is forced commit to follow his wife order. As he begins to follow his wife’s order, He begins to dislike her. As he describes, “When she tightened the knot of my tie I could have kissed her, the way I always used to when she fixed my tie, but I didn’t.”(128). He is starting to grow bitter of her, as she is making him doing things against his will. Evidence of his unhappiness and bitterness can be found elsewhere in the story. After they finally went to the Zumpens house and he got the contract the way Bertha wanted, she was happy, but he wasn’t. As he states, “As we went down the elevator, Bertha said she was happy, but I said nothing” (130).In conclusion this short story shows that both spouses are making commitments and sacrifices, but only one is
happy.
The short story of Kate Chopin “The Story of an Hour” tells the story of Mrs. Mallard and the way she reacts to the news that her husband was probably killed in a train accident, and how she was not happy in her marriage. All this takes place in the nineteenth century in Louisiana, where at the time the women rights were basically inexistent. At the beginning of the story, the narrator describes the way her sister tries to give her the bad news gently, because of her hearth affliction and the unusual way she reacted. As the narrator states, “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance.”(7). She was clearly in shock by the magnitude of the news.
But as the narrator keep going on, we begin to see how she reacts. She went alone to her room and sat on a chair facing a window and stood motionless. The narrator describes, “She was young with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength.”(7). She clearly had a suffered through her marriage. The story will keep giving signs of this. As the story keeps developing, Mrs. Mallard began to feel something that she didn’t knew how to explain it. As Chopin writes, “There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name.” (7) She is actually feeling good, but she knows she shouldn’t feel that way. Then the story tells exactly how she feels. As the narrator starts to tell, that she knew what was she feeling, and that she was getting excited to express it and was powerless to stop it. As she shouts, “’Free, free, free!’”(7). She was relieved to know that her husband was dead. This clearly states she was unhappy in her marriage.
In conclusion, she was probably a victim of several abuses from her husband and she was in a unhealthy marriage.
Commitment and sacrifice are a necessary to have a happy and healthy marriage according to a claim made by Jenny Franchot. The story of Heinrich Boll “Like a Bad Dream” is the best example of Franchot’s claim, as in the story of Kate Chopin “The Story of an Hour” which actually doesn’t show any evidence to prove Franchot claim. In Boll’s story “Like a Bad Dream” we got several ways to prove this claim. As the narrator and his wife Bertha are about to knock on the Zumpens’ door, the narrator describes how his wife is encouraging him. As he describes, “Bertha gave me an encouraging look: but she stayed in the car when we stopped in front of the Zumpens’ house.”(128). the narrator clearly shows how he sacrifices his own will to obey his wife, who is showing commitment towards her husband. Still another evidence to prove this claim is found as the story continues. While the narrator is told by Mrs. Zumpen that his offer is low and he can make it fifteen pfennigs higher , he was too nervous to do it himself , so he made Bertha do it, but she made a different offer and he just watched. The narrator describes, “I was in too much turmoil to write; I gave the file to Bertha and watched her alter the price” (130). Again the narrator makes the commitment to obey his wife. However, in the story of Kate Chopin “The Story of an Hour” we cannot find stronger points to prove Franchot’s claim. As Mrs. Mallard is beginning to enjoy her freedom. The author states, “She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her” (8). This shows that even though she was unhappy in her marriage, she still was committed to suffer her husband’s death. Also in the next part of the story, she gives more proof of her commitment and sacrifice. As she began to wonder how she will live alone. Chopin writes, “And yet she had loved him—sometimes. Often she had not.” (8). with this we can see even when there were bad times on her marriage, she sacrificed her happiness to commit to her marriage.
In conclusion, to make a happy and healthy marriage not only commitment and sacrifice are key factors to sustain a marriage. There are several factors that can make a marriage happy and healthy. Jenny Franchot’s claim is not completely wrong, but rather incomplete. With these two stories, we saw one marriage on the path of becoming unhappy and unhealthy which is Boll’s story. And in Chopin story, we see the consequences of a marriage that became unhappy and unhealthy.

Works Cited
Boll, Heinrich. “Like a Bad Dream” Silverman and Spack 126-131.
Silverman, Naomi and Spack, Ruth, eds. The International Story: An Anthology with Guidelines for Reading and Writing about Fiction. Cambridge: University Press, 1998. Print
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour” Silverman and Spack 6-8.