“The wife” by Emily Dickinson and “The story of an Hour?” by Kate Chopin are both short pieces that highlight the inequality faced by women, especially married women. They both have a reoccurring theme of the dysfunctional relationship between husband and wife. In the third stanza of “the wife” it says “But only to himself is known the fathoms they abide.” I believe that this means that the husband is the only one that knows what their wife goes through on a day-to-day basis and at the same time it means that they don’t know the depth of what their wife actually goes through especially during the times the poem and short story was written as women had much less rights than they do today. This is especially noted when Ms. Mallard dies when she finds out her husband is alive as all her hopes and dreams of being freed from married life are instantly crushed. It shows how their relationship was so dysfunctional and how Ms. Mallard hated it so much that she would rather die than go back to her husband.
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2 thoughts on “Zi Seow Discussion 9”
Hi Zi, I like your observation to the quote that the husband thinks he knows what his wife goes through daily, but truly he could never understand because he is much more free in many ways. I also agree that Mrs. Mallard would much rather being free from life than to be married in a marriage that is destructive.
Hi Zi,
I also like your observation of the husband thinking they know what the wife goes through daily. I think it can relate to how in “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs. Mallard is only ever referred to by her first name by Josephine, another woman. In a way, both stories are showing the lack of identity wives have after being married. The power dynamic makes it so that the men control the way the marriage works.