What surprised you and why?
What surprised me in “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin was Mrs. Mallard’s response to her husband’s death as well as her response to seeing her husband alive and well. I was not expecting her to feel triumphant by realizing that she would have the ability to be independent following the death of Mr. Mallard and I was most definitely not expecting her to drop dead upon seeing him alive. I assumed her “piercing cry” was one of excitement rather than dread until I re-read the last paragraph a few times.
What intrigued you and why?
What intrigued me about the story ” The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant was the lesson it seemed to teach. Throughout the beginning of the story, Madame Loisel is miserable because she is living what she deems to be a ‘poor’ life. In preparation for a ball, she ends up borrowing a necklace to present herself as belonging among the rich and when she loses the necklace, she lies and ends up putting her and her husband in debt in order to pay the debt back. For ten years she now experiences what it really means to be poor, and all to find out that the necklace she borrowed to begin with, was fake. The lesson I gather from this story is to be grateful, always, for what you have and to always tell the truth. If Madame Loisel had told the truth to begin with, she would have known the true value of the necklace she lost and would not have had to suffer, but perhaps she had to suffer to gain a new perspective on her life.
What puzzled you and why?
The poem “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson puzzled me.
“She rose to his requirement, dropped
The playthings of her life
To take the honorable work
Of woman and of wife.”
I understand this first stanza to mean the role of ‘the wife’ comes at the cost of independence. However I am not sure I understand the next two stanzas of the poem:
“If aught she missed in her new day
Of amplitude, or awe,
Or first prospective, or the gold
In using wore away,
It lay unmentioned, as the sea
Develops pearl and weed,
But only to himself is known
The fathoms they abide.”
Can anyone help me out?
One thought on “Sophia Morales Discussion 9”
Yeah I also didn’t understand it. I thought I had some understanding of it but then some questions on the test had me realize I didn’t understand it at all. I thought the same as you in the first stanza. In the last two I thought it was trying to say something about her giving up the good things in her own life once she became a wife because then she would have to share her experiences? I’m not sure but that’s what I interpreted it as at first.