In the poem “The Wife” it talks about a woman who is not married, depict herself as a wife and describes what it is to be a woman and what it is to be a married woman. The story “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is about a married woman named Louise Mallard who’s husband passes away due to a railroad accident but she learns to be herself because being married made her feel as if her some of her freedom was taken away. The two main characters have similar life aspects as to feeling like a free person when not married. In the poem “The Wife” it says “She rose to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life To take the honorable work of woman and of wife”. The beginning of this section of the poem shows that the woman when being married takes the personal fun of her life to take on the more responsible tasks of a married woman.
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2 thoughts on “Angel Gomez Discussion 9”
Angela, thanks for the comments. Yes, in both works of literature the loss of freedom experienced by married women of this time comes through clearly. It would be considered a lack of appreciation for a married woman to express discontentment in marriage given how the role of wife is regarded as “honorable.” In the poem there is a sense that a woman is not fully adult until she relinquishes the “playthings of her life” and becomes a wife. And of course, in the 19th Century a middle-class woman had very few opportunities to choose a different role.
Hello Angel,
I like how you understood the poem and the story. And I would like to say that I agree with you because the poem it does describe like she’s not married, for me It was like she didn’t want to get married. In the other hand, the two stories are similar, they are woman and they feel like they want freedom.