Angela Gertsovich Week 9 Discussion

Back then, women were oppressed and had to abide by the males in their lives’ wishes. In “The Wife” the woman is stripped of her identity when she is married off and abides by her husband’s wishes. In “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs. Mallard’s husband dies and she becomes distraught with grief at first and end up mourning the loss of her husband. After she is over the initial shock and mourn, she locks herself in her room and ends up realizing that she is free of him and doesn’t have to abide by his every whim. Both characters are in similar situations in feeling trapped in their marriages and end up realizing how dim their personalities are in said marriages. In, “The Wife” she ends up mentioning giving up “the playthings of her life” in this sense she means everything that makes her, her including most of her personality and in “The Story of an Hour” she mentions on how dim her personality gets with being married off and spending the rest of her life trying to please a man that doesn’t love her and ends up realizing she has “a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely.” They are both inherently sad deep down and know that marriage traps them.