Gender inequality in Emily Dickinson’s “The Wife” and Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour.
Emily Dickson’s poem “The Wife” demonstrates how marriage institutions perpetuate a privilege and inequality system for women. The poem depicts marriage as an institution governed by patriarchal rules, a fact that signifies gender inequality. The poem’s first line, “She rose his requirement, dropped the playthings of her life,” expounds an ideology that transitions from girlhood to becoming a woman, and then a wife prevents women from accessing self-dignity and freedom. Married women are considered their husbands’ possessions, which leaves them no choice but to comply with whatever rules their husbands impose on them. The resultant of explained ideology is a situation where women suffer emotional pressure. Emily’s poem contradicts a socially constructed ideology that marriage strengthens women with claims that it reduces women to mere men’s objects that abide blindly to her husband.
Kate Chopin’s story “The Story of an Hour” illustrates the theme of inequality through Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state of mind. The story depicts the state of a woman suffering from her husband’s restrictions and confinement to home chores. Mrs. Mallard was overjoyed after receiving information that her husband was dead. “she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment,” but then she began to feel free (Chopin n.p). She expresses her feelings for freedom by repeating the word “Free! Body and soul free!” (n.p). Readers expect Mrs. Mallard to mourn and grieve her husband’s demise, but the contrary happens because she knows her husband’s death meant her freedom. Mrs. Mallard’s emotions did not last long because her husband had not died. This realization caused her emotional breakdown and death.
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Your interpretation of gender inequality about “The Wife” really relates to Mrs. Mallard’s miserable emotional state. The marriage of Mrs. Mallard does give a seeming power to her since back to those days, women’s power is too little to imagine. If she never marry, I am afraid she wouldn’t have had a decent life to live. It is still a big question in 19th century what happens to the women if they don’t follow the social rules that have to have marriage. The imagination of Mrs. Mallard is wonderful, but facing the enormous pressure in the society, how many women would change their mind even if they knew the reality?