One of the key similarities between these two works is how each woman views marriage as a sort of trap. In “The Story of an Hour” we can see that the wife is overjoyed by the news her husband passed as seen in the line, “She said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free!”. This explicitly shows how the Mrs. Mallard felt ensnared by her marriage, to the point where her husband dying was the best option for her. This is also seen in the astonishment she shows when her husband shows up alive as seen in, “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease — of the joy that kills”. This shows how her sudden shift in mood was so severe that she ended up passing away. The poem shares the same views as seen in the line, “It lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed ,But only to himself is known The fathoms they abide”. These lines show how the wife felt like her life was wasting away being a stay home wife.
Daily Archives: March 27, 2022
The theme of Emily Dicksons poem “The Wife” relates to Mrs. Mallards emotional state in “The Story of An Hour” because in the poem “The Wife” it talks about how a woman that was married had her husband die and it was hard for her and it wasn’t easy but she had to pull her self together and move on and care for herself. In the poem The story of an hour it talks about how Mrs. Millard takes comfort when her husband died and people can see how strong she is for moving on. So as you can see the themes are pretty similar because they both talk about marriage and how to move on and stay strong. they both went along for there own needs and continued work. After Mrs. Millards husband death she was extremely sad but got over it and which it lead her to have more freedom.
What is clear from both “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is women of the 1800’s lived on the whims of their husbands. One could say that they weren’t truly alive when their husbands were around. They were merely extensions of their husbands not a whole person unto themselves. When Dickinson says “She rose to his requirement..” or “the gold in using wore away” speaks to all that a wife has to do for her husband and the standards that she has to keep for him slowly wearing away at her as a person until there is not much left of herself. Which makes the wife in Chopin’s story so happy in the way that she describes all of what she is experiencing right after hearing of her husband’s demise. Whether speaking of the tops of trees “springing to life” or the “patches of blue sky” it was as if the world around her was coming to life for the first time. Though no other line in Chopin’s story rings closer to how her main character felt than when she kept whispering “Free! Body and soul free!”.
The theme of the poem “The wife” by Emily Dickinson and Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “The Story of an Hour” is related; they both expressed the hidden difficulties and indescribable feelings behind being a wife. In “The Story of an Hour,” Mrs. Mallard is depressed to face the death of her husband. However, as we progress through the story, we can see how Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state unfolds. She felt relieved that she would not be oppressed by marriage and regain her own freedom. She unveiled her true emotions when she was in her room alone; she would whisper to herself, “Free! Body and soul free!” “She would have no one follower her” indicates that she only feels safe to release her emotions when no one sees her. In the poem “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson, she describes how much a woman has to give up to become a wife and will not be honored by others. “She rose to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life To take the honorable work Of woman and of wife.” It was as if getting married was all about satisfying her husband’s needs; the lady has to sacrifice and leave all her “playthings” behind; she now is no longer a girl but a wife and a woman. “If aught she missed in her new day Of amplitude, or awe, Or first prospective, or the gold In using wore away,” I believe here the term “abrupt” refers to the sudden transition in this woman’s life, from a relatively carefree young unmarried girl to a married woman with many responsibilities. She says nothing about what she’s amazed by and her plans for her new life. “It lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed, But only to himself is known The fathoms […]
A few years ago, women were often locked in the house, only doing housework and errands, and didn’t like it one bit. In “The Wife”, a woman transforms when she gets married and respects her husband’s wishes. In “The One Hour Story,” Mallard’s husband dies, at first she weeps and finally mourns the loss of her husband. After getting over the initial shock and grief, she finally realizes she is free. She is aware that she is moving towards freedom. Her fear and blank look were replaced by her acceptance and excitement. The two characters find themselves in similar situations, both feeling trapped in their marriage and will realize how weak their personalities are in their marriage. In “The Wife”, when she enters married life, she is no longer a girl but a woman, so she has to leave behind all her “playthings”, which are taken for granted. make her a woman. In “The One Hour Story”, she deals with her darkness. She used to have a personality before getting married and spends the rest of her life trying to please a man who doesn’t love her. She then realized that she had “a long journey in the years to come that will be entirely hers”. Both characters are very sad and know that before they got married they had a fulfilling life but when they got married they fell into a trap.
The poem “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson relates to the story “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin because both story I feel like is dealing with freedom and also marriage. In the poem “The Wife” she is stuck between being a free woman and also being a wife as she mentioned in the poem “She rose to his requirement, dropped the playthings of her life” meaning that she is willing to up it and do whatever to become the perfect wife she is supposed to be, and in “The Story of An Hour” shes with her partner that she truly loves but once he passes away she mentions “body and soul free” she felt like a free woman after the death of her husband. Both woman are dealing with marriage form a different point of view one feel like they are required to any and everything for a man at any given moment and one feels happy that her man passed away.
The theme of the Emily Dickson poem “The Wife” relates to Mrs.Mallards emotional state in “The Story of an Hour” is because the theme I noticed in Emily Dickson’s poem was when I was reading the second group of four lines as she was explaining that if she was to miss anything at all in the new day it would feel that to her as she was not able to accomplish what she had settled for the day because she was a women who enjoyed to do work and missing a day didn’t settle right with her and basically ruined her plans. The way it relates to “The Story of an Hour” to me is because in this story Louise basically was not around the moment her husband died but the people who were are trying to figure ways to tell Louise about her husbands death so that she does not react in a certain way especially since she was not there. The way these two connect are because they both speak about in their own ways how they feel ashamed if they were to miss something big in their lives and in each of them it shows they end up not being in certain places during important times.
“The Wife” by Emily Dickinson relates to Mrs. Mallard’s emotional state in “Story of An Hour” because Mrs. Mallard expresses joy in freedom from her husband dying. At first, Mrs. Mallard is washed over with emotions of grief. she later on realizes she will be living for herself in the coming years, repeating “Free! Body and soul free!”. In “The Wife” by Emily Dickinson, the quote “She rose to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life To take the honorable work Of woman and of wife.” shows how she or woman in general would drop their interests or what they were doing and take the role/stereotype as a woman and wife. Emily then ends with “It lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed, But only to himself is known The fathoms they abide.”, which means how her “wife duties” continue to become the normality of every day living to her husband, restricted to enjoy the things she likes to do.
