The theme of Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Wife” is about how a woman loses her identity when marrying a man. In “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs. Mallard is initially overcome with grief upon learning of her husband’s untimely death. She then quickly realizes that his death results in her freedom. She becomes elated at the thought of living her life just for herself and not having to do as her husband commands. In “The Wife”, Dickinson speaks of this duty of a wife having to rise to her “husband’s requirement” and letting go of her own personal interests. Dickinson further elaborates on the sacrifices a wife makes by saying that her thoughts and feelings also “lay unmentioned”. She describes how a wife could not share her mind with her husband and compares the magnitude of these thoughts and feelings to the “fathoms” of the “sea”. This provides insight to the reader of how incredibly lonely this existence was for women.
Daily Archives: March 23, 2022
The theme of the Emily Dickinson poem “The Wife” relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of an Hour.”, in many ways. Cleary in the time period in which both the story and poem were written, feminism was just a trembling whisper. However these short passages exploit the experiences of Women who were undermined and emotionally & physically abused first hand. The theme of “The Wife” relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of an Hour” by using verbiage to set a dark tone when describing their relationship to their spouse and how they are bound to their partner. This can be directly proven from lines eleven and 12 of, “The Wife”, where Dickinson quotes “But only to himself is known The fathoms they abide.” (11-12). Mrs. Mallard proves to be relieved by her husbands death being that there is no longer a clasp on her independence. This can be derived from, “The Story of an Hour”, when her sister Josephine mistakes Mrs. Mallards tears of joy for tears of greif, “I beg; open the door — you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.” “Go away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.” (15-16). Finally, are many other examples in which you can make this direct correlation as well., but I find that this identifies best with the relation of the Women’s emotional state in the two passages. P.S. (I capitalized Women as the stories were related to feminism and independence) 🙂
The theme of the poem “The Wife” relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of an Hour” because they are both similar. In “The Wife” talks about a lady who is married, most likely not wanting to be married, and has to live through it because it is her “duty”. In the last line of the poem, we find out that she may not be happy with her marriage and remains quiet about it. “It lay unmentioned, like the sea, Develops pearl and weed, But only to himself is known, The fathoms they abide.” This relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of an Hour.” because we see that Mrs. Mallard was quite happy when she heard her husband had passed and even started to whisper to herself “Free! Body and soul free!” and “free, free, free!” The keyword is whispering, maybe she didn’t have enough courage to stay it louder, but we see here that she didn’t seem too fond of being married. In both the poem and story, the women were forced into a domestic role of being the stay-at-home mom, housewife, and gender roles. Cult of Domesticity.
“The Wife,” a poem by Emily Dickson, reveals the poet’s concerns for the native feminineness in the middle-class people by articulating the gender roles of women by applying the term “wife” frequently. Patently, the poem’s persona is a woman, and conservatisms of marriage are articulated from the female perspective. Further, the theme in Dickinson’s poem tends to relate to Mallard’s passionate state in “The Story of an Hour.” In this regard, the paper discusses how the theme in Emily’s poem relates to Mallard’s work. “The Story of an Hour and The Wife” tend to focus on the female gender. Emily Dickson demonstrates the subtle feminist transformation of ladies to wives. The poet starts the first stanza by indicating that “I’m Wife.” According to Emily, females become their rulers after marriage (Dickinson 1). On the other hand, the “Story of an Hour” focuses on a female character who felt relieved after the death of her husband. After discovering that her husband escaped death, Mrs. Mallard passes through various feelings and emotions. Moreover, “The wife” and “The Story of an Hour” indicate that men exclusively dominated the marriage institution. For instance, in the poem “My Wife,” the poet indicates that once a female got married, her entire life changed completely as she had to submit to the man. Dickson believed that being a female, who comfort the notion of being a “woman,” marriage was a compulsory part of a female’s life. Mrs. Mallard’s joy in “The Story of an Hour” after discovering that her husband was no more indicates that she received freedom from the chains of being controlled by another person. As indicated by (Chopin 1), “she would live for herself,” thus showing that Mallard got liberty when the husband died. In conclusion, Emily Dickson’s The Wife and “The Story of […]
