Symbolic Use of Nature in a Story of an Hour and Summer

Writers of A Story of an Hour and Summer both link their ideas to the natural world. In A Story, Louise Mallard speaks love as a burden and the oppressiveness of marriage, while Homer in Summer expresses the desire for the eternal home where love is tangible, long-lasting. In general, the two stories express opposite desire for love, such distinct view is also where the similarities can be found in terms of the way that writers communicate these idea. Both writers develop their ideas with the use of many symbols, particularly the season and the nature. Season functions as a universal symbol between the two works. In A Story, Mrs. Mallard could see the trees begin to grow, breath the fresh air, hear the beautiful singing and the countless sparrows twittering from the window; all of which symbolize the new life that she is going to embrace after knowing her husband’s death in a train accident:
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. (537)
This seasonal change clearly excites Mrs. Millard since her life is previously obstructed by her marriage and now she can see herself is about to revive by taking control of her own life. Although one may normally associate sparrow as small or little, however, this may not be the case when sparrow clusters together. The “countless sparrow” are more powerful in making themselves loud enough to be heard when they are “twittering in the eaves”, which may signify Mrs. Millard self-assertion and her desire to withdrawn from living under her husband’s shadow. Similarly, Summer uses season to symbolizes different stages of human life: childhood, youth, maturity and death. The seasonal progress from summer to autumn. representing

References: to spring and summer symbolize the how energetic and fresh that Mrs. Mallard feels toward the experience of having freedom, she does not even think about autumn or winter that often associate with dying out because she thinks she will live her own life freely from now on as the oppression that marriage will never reoccur again. By contrast, in Summer, Homer expresses is love emotion extensively using the natural world, especially the lake. It is interesting that the writer uses “lake” particularly to symbolize Homer’s affection for Sandra but not other natural source. For instance, since the use of “ocean” conveys unpredictability because it is can get volatile depending on its size of waves, it is more suitable to use “lake” to symbolize Homer’s love emotion because it is more static in nature, implying his feeling for Sandra is going to last. The enclosed environment that Homer is living also makes him become more open to his love emotion, which he may not be able to do in his everyday environment because he is expected to behave “manly”. The two protagonists in the play challenge the gender stereotypes that we as readers would normally associate: women are central to love and relationships while men are more independent ones. Perhaps it may seem odd to express this reverse in gender stereotype just in plain words, the use of symbolism in the two stories have helped to communicate the unfamiliar idea to readers effectively. Though the stories in these ways share some aspects of treatment to symbolism, they are distinct and individual. A Story reveals about an independent spirit of a woman and it disagrees love and marriage should be the focus of a woman’s life while Summer speaks for a boy searching for solid and unchanging love. Both of the stories can be vividly presented in front of the one’s eyes because we can visualize the story easily with its use of the natrual world as a universal symbol. Despite the protagonist holds an opposite desire for love, they are still parallel by the stressing of human internal thought and feeling using symbolism.