Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Wife” and Kate Chopin’s short story “Story of an Hour” have two main characters that feel very similar. Both of these texts are centered around women whose lives are defined by being married and neither one of them like it. The “Story of an Hour”‘s main character Mrs. Mallard’s husband just died, and she comes to the realization that while she might have felt sad at first, she was then overwhelmed with this feeling this she could finally be free. Be free to be her own person. She had been forced to sacrifice a good part of her life just to be her husband’s wife. She wasn’t allowed to be her own individual. This is very similar to the theme of “The Wife”. There the reverse is happening. A woman is being forced to set aside her own life, and her own identity for a man’s. Emily Dickinson writes, “It lay unmentioned, as the sea
Develops pearl and weed” (Dickinson). Here, she is describing how the wife in the poem is going to have to lay aside all of her ambitions, her personal life, and her own interests now that she is married.
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