Arly Alvarado, Discussion 9

Just by reading the title of Emily Dickinson’s poem, The Wife, I predicted that it will be from the perspective of a woman telling her readers how life has changed on her behalf after marriage. Dickinson’s states, “She rose to his requirement, dropped the playthings of her life. To take the honorable work of woman and of wife.” Within the first paragraph, the writer makes it clear that she has changed her ways to live up to his standards. Further throughout the poem, she mentions that “It lay unmentioned, as the sea develops pearl and weed.” She would repress her emotions and freewill to be the wife she believes she is supposed to be. This theme connects to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of an Hour.” In the beginning of the story the news of her husband’s passing is broken to her. She is filled with grief, locking herself away in her room. Though as shes processing reality as a widow, she sees beyond that- a free and independent woman. She was accustomed to living for someone other than herself. It seems to have filled her with excitement.”There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature.” Shortly after, Mrs. Mallard passes away after the moment she evidently yearned for was taken from her when Mr. Mallard walked through the door.