...“The story of an hour” The short story ”The story of an hour” written by Kate Chopin, is a story about a woman called Mrs. Mallard, she is told by her sister Josephine, that her husband died in a train accident. The way she reacted in front of her sister was very dramatic, but when she was by herself in her room she was not being sad, miserable or devastated, but in a way very relived. In the text we follow Mrs. Mallard’s feelings, about herself and her husband. Kate Chopin wrote “ The story of an hour “ in 1894, which was in a time period, were the women had no rights. In 1894 the gender roles were deadlocked; the women was suppressed by their husband, in family relationship, and in the political and legal sense. The husband had the final say, in all decisions. It was him who ruled over the family’s finances, and decided where the family should live. The woman took care of the house, the children, and was responsible for the housekeeping. The man’s role was to support his family. The woman’s role was to give birth, take care of the home, and assist the husband. At the time the male gender role was portrayed as the strong, powerful, deciding and intelligent gender. Where as the woman, was portrayed as weak, without influence, insensible and the husband’s subordinate (placed under the man). Louise Mallard is a strong, powerful, intelligent and independent woman. She knows how she should behave in front of her husband, family and society. But how she feels and think, is anything...
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...The Story of an Hour In the short story, The Story of an Hour I was able to pull two main themes. Love and Alienation is depicted throughout the entire story. Not only is love the theme but romantic love. The first theme love is exemplified in more than one way. In the beginning of the story, it explains how Mrs. Mallard has heart troubles and that they try to break the news of her husbands death sequentially as possible. Stating “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.” (Chopin) The first sentence of the story automatically portrayed love; it was obvious she would take the new of husband harshly because she loved him. Upon hearing the news Mrs. Mallard had a “paralyzed inability to accept its significance.” (Chopin) The news hit Mrs. Mallard hard and she cried in her sister, Josephine, arms. After accepting the matter of circumstances, Mrs. Mallard left to be alone. This is where the alienation plays a part in the story. Instead of accepting the comfort of family and friend, she decided to be alone. Maybe this was her way of dealing with grief, being alone and silent was her best remedy. Sitting alone in a room consisting of a chair and a window, Mrs. Mallard sat there and continued to think about the event that just occurred. At first, it seemed as if Mrs. Mallard just needed alone time, but later on in the story it seems as if something is coming over her. She...
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...Sacrifices are driven from desperation for something greater. This idea is conveyed various times in the novel, Krik? Krak!. Edwidge Danticat, the author, collaborates many short stories about Haitians and the struggles they go through in Haiti and America. In Krik? Krak!, Danticat illustrates that hope for a greater future makes people sacrifice and take risks, despite the hardships that follow. In many of Danticat’s stories, parents sacrifice themselves and risk everything for the hopeful future of their children. Danticat represents this idea in her story “1937”, which focuses on Josephine and her mother, who was pregnant with her on the day of a bloody massacre and jumped into a river for the survival of Josephine and her life ahead. Josephine...
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...Chaney English Comp.I April The short story entitled “Story Of An Hour” written by Kate Chopin is a powerful story about a woman, Mrs. Mallard who is given the horrible news that her husband has just passed away in a train wreck. Devastated by her husband’s sudden death she excuses herself and immediately rushes to her bedroom where we see a different side of Mrs. Mallard’s attitude. She has taken on a different angle of life now, she is upset about her husband’s sudden death, however; she has something to be happy about it. Now that her husband has passed away is Mrs. Mallard happy because she is now her own person? Or is Mrs. Mallard truly upset that her husband has passed? “Story Of An Hour” was written in 1894, which was in a time period where women did not really have much power or say in anything that went on. Women were really the ones that stayed home and took care of the family and tended to the house, while the husbands went out and worked. Women really stayed out of the lime light and their opinions were never heard or considered. Even though women had desires and feelings, those feelings were never heard of. Women did not dare speak out about their feelings or their rights, it was just not heard of in that time period. Women really lived a life of silence then because they had no voice and they dared not once speak out. Kate Chopin lived in this type of time period where women really did not have any rights. Chopin wrote stories where the characters were women...
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...window that looks into her office and from a certain angle I can see her without her ever seeing me. I can see her face and her expressions as she types away on her typewriter and if I look very closely I can see the words she so carefully types. Today, I sneak back up to the window and I see Ms. Chopin laughing. She must be done with whatever it was she was doing. She is not finished; she is still typing away. Some fellow detective friends of mine have been doing investigations similar to mine and they have told me that these laughs that come out of nowhere most likely have to with irony. She must be writing an ironic story, after all, those stories are the only ones people seem to be interested in right now. It seems that the title of her work is Story of an Hour. Kate Chopin’s short story contains dramatic and situational irony, which serve to make the story unique and keep the readers on the edges of their seats waiting for what happens next. My following report proves my findings. The following night I waited for Ms. Chopin to go to bed. I waited exactly 40 minutes after she turned out her lights to carefully sneak in through the kitchen door. Moving carefully and quietly, I entered her office. It seemed quite different from inside; the room was narrower, the walls were not as bright without the sun shining on them, and the floor tiles seemed quite old. I started looking for the papers that would help me conclude my investigation and I found them neatly stacked on the...
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...The Tale of Two Stories Sheri O'Connell ENG125: Introduction to Literature Instructor: Heather AltfeldFisher September 25, 2011 The Tale of Two Stories Thesis Statement This paper compares two short stories, "The Story of an Hour" (Chopin) and "The Necklace" (Guy de Maupassant). "How little a thing is needed for us to be lost or saved?" [ (Clugston, 2010) ]. Both stories portray two different yet alike women. Both women struggle to find their independence. Both women find trouble just when they believe they have 'succeeded' in their search. Introduction The poem “the Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is an impressive literary piece that attracts the feeling of the readers, as well as their minds. However, the story is very short and precise, but it is rich and complete, and every word of the poem has a deep thought and meaning (Charters 2003). Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" deals with a young American women's unanticipated sense of reprieve and independence upon hearing of her husband's death which enabled her to breathe the contentment during the last moments of her life with an anticipation, self esteem, and self consciousness. Mrs. Mallard's delight within her is termed as freedom in this story. (Jamil, 2009, 157) Guy de Maupassant's "The Necklace" deals with a young woman who struggles with wanting what she can't have and the consequences for trying to be something she is not. Mathilde struggles with her low social and economic class, she dreams of...
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... The Rocking Horse Winners & The Destructors( Fiction) Graham Greene’s “The Destructors” and D. H. Lawrence’s “The Rocking Horse Winner”, are very different stories, but both contain similarities. “The Destructors” and “The Rocking Horse Winner” were both written by British authors . Both stories were written after a World War, so the living conditions were still miserable. The themes of the stories are go around the characters of the stories, especially on the children in each story. The characters in “The Destructors” are not as fully developed as the characters in “The Rocking Horse Winner”. The only two characters that Green developed were Trevor, better known as “T”, and Mr. Thomas, also referred to as Old Misery. Trevor was the quickly became the leader of the gang. Old Misery was an architect that lived in a crippled house, that is pretty much the only building still standing in that area. The destruction of this house becomes the challenge and the focus for Trevor and the rest of the characters who are grouped together as the Wormsley gang. They have grown up together and share the experience of bombs falling on their town. “The Rocking Horse Winner” has characters that are a little more rounded. Paul, the boy in the story, his mother, his Uncle, and Bassett the gardener are in constant turmoil over poverty. Paul has an obsessive desire to become lucky, due to the fact of his mother’s obsession with...
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...The Last Float Trip – analysis By Mads Brögger Klausen Summary The short story is about a 15-year old girl named Sam. Her father and she have been taking float trips as long as she can remember, but Sam has been offered a scholarship to a boarding school, and therefore this year’s trip seems to be the last one. Along with Sam and her father two others are joining them for the trip, Sam’s uncle Harry and a client of his, whose name is Laydon. With him Laydon is bringing a couple of guns, including a ‘’Nine-millimeter Ruger semiautomatic gun’’ which he intends to teach Sam how to use. She gets pretty good at it, but decides that her father must not know about the shooting. This little secret brings Laydon and Sam closer together and results in a creepy situation one night around the fire after Harry and Sam’s father have gone to bed. Laydon tries to touch Sam on some private spots, but she is clever enough to stop him and walk away. At the end of the trip Sam tells her father that she is now determined to accept the scholarship, maybe because he has discovered a bullet in Sam’s pocket just seconds before. Who is Sam? Sam is right on the edge of saying goodbye to her childhood and this trip makes her take the step to become a more independent and sophisticated young woman, this is also the story’s main theme. In the start of the float trip she is very nervous, shy and furthermore she is unsecure about her own person. At the end of the trip Sam has experienced a lot of new things...
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...Essay of ”A Fortune” One of the most important things in life is to feel, that you are worth something. Otherwise you will live your whole life longing for a future where people will recognize and appreciate the greatness of your being. But this acknowledgement is not to be found among other people. You have to find it in yourself, which can be an almost impossible challenge and the process towards self-knowledge can be both painful and confusing. This challenge is what the protagonist or the “I” of the short story A Fortune by Joy Monica T. Sakaguchi has to face on his way to accept himself. In A Fortune the story is told in first person, which means that the narrator of the story is the “I” and that the story is described from his point of view. As a result we can quite easily relate to the “I” and thus we almost immediately sympathize with him, because we know his each and every thought and feeling. The “I” is the kind of person who yearns for people, his father in particular, to recognize his worth and appreciate him. We see this in lines 13-14, where he talks about his father: “(…) I just didn’t want to know how much Pop thought I was worth.” After his father leaves the “I” keeps doing pickpocketing, because he wants to prove himself to his father by giving him all the money, when he comes back. The “I” is for that reason focusing on the future all along, which probably lies at the root of him being so excessively fond of fortune cookies, because they tell you...
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...The Story of an Hour Caprice Tarpley Kaplan University Professor Susan Zappia April 2, 2013 The Story of an Hour Introduction Kate Choplin in her mini story ‘The story of an hour’ depicts very beautifully the yearnings and longings of a woman in the 19th century. The story is short and beautiful, and the underlying message is that women are just as humans as men and they have the same yearning desire for freedom as the men in their life (Chopin, 1894). The story of Mrs. Mallard Louise Mallard is the major character of the story. She is represented as a fair and calm woman along with little indication of being strong. She was suffering from heart disease and that is why the death of her husband was disclosed to her after much hesitation. Her character envelops a mixture of happiness and grievance. It can clearly be observed when she got the news of her husband’s death. Despite of going into shock, she dramatically cried hard for a time (Jamil, 2009). Owing to the fact that she had a heart trouble, she must had went into shock, however, she was calm and started considering the new opportunities her life may pose her. She welcomed some mysterious things appearing to her from the sky and her actions show that she was feeling immense independence after her husband’s death. She was overjoyed with the fact that she could lead her life without any domination (Seyler, 2009). At start, the weaker side of her character was portrayed, whereas...
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...Introduction The title of the story is The Rain Came by Grace Ogot. The author of the story is Grace Ogot or also known as Grace Emily Akinyi. She was born on 15 May 1930, near Kisumu, central Nyanza Region in Kenya. In achievement, she became the first African woman writer in English who published fiction by the East African Publishing House. Her stories such as Land Without Thunder (1968), The Other Woman (1976), and The Island of Tears (1980) provides the traditional Luo life. Most of her fiction stories are according with the customs, history and traditions of the Luo tribe in Kenya, which has the second largest ethnic group. The Luo tribe lived for most part near Lake Victoria. Her formal writing reflects the addition of her formal learning with the traditions in her life. All her collections of writings reflect her personal love towards the stories of her culture. Grace Ogot passed away in April 2010. 1. Character and characterizations The main character or the primary character is Oganda which means “beans” due to her very fair skin. She is the chief’s only daughter around at the tender age to married and also the protagonist in this story. She is a very traditional and great woman where she willing to sacrificed herself so that the Luo will have rain. She also loves to imagine her future where she imagined which man should be the best man to married. Oganda is very disappointed on her people which they willing to give her up to sacrifice. Lastly, she...
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...Life vs. Death In the short story, “The Rattler”, a man and a rattle snake cross paths in the desert, and life vs. death is involved. The man has to decide whether he should kill the snake or not, and he decided that he is obligated to. Though we understand both sides of the story, the man should not have killed the snake. The snake was calm and alert, not trying to harm anyone, but still protecting himself. In the short passage, “The Rattler” , the personification of the snake, the point of the man, and details about the setting all lead readers to feel sympathy toward the snake, as well as sorrow and frustration towards the man. Readers feel sorry for the snake because it loses its life, even though it never threatens or causes the man any harm. The snake is calm. The snake is careful and watchful, but does not strike. The rattler had not moved; he lay there like a “live wire”. The snake has all potential to harm, but controls itself, not threatening the man. The snake even gave the man a second chance by hiding in the bush, as if saying “I don’t want to harm you, but I can, so leave me alone!” As we all know, snakes are very much able to harm, but the snake, being calm, chose to even hide in order to not harm the man. Readers can also see that the snake is very patient. The snake was patiently waiting for the man to “show intentions”. Instead of automatically striking, it decides to wait, to only harm as self-defense, so that he does not have to harm for no reason. The...
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...that of a father for His son” – This quote can be related to the short story crossing, which is written by Mark Slouka. The father (Narrator) has a past where he failed a lot on the family-front, now he is trying to make things better by trying to improve his bond to his son. A relationship between a son and his father is difficult to maintain when the sons father and mother are divorced. The custody is typically awarded to the mother of the child. How would a father behave when he get the chance to strengthen the bond between his son and himself? Mark Slouka has used third-person limited omniscient narrator. This means a few things for the narrative technique. Typical for a third-person narrator is the use of pronouns like “he, she, they, them” which is shown in the short story Crossing. EX: “When the first car appeared he could see it from a long way off…” “When they came out of the trees and onto the stony beach…” Third-person limited omniscient narrator also means that the narrator knows everything but he does not necessarily disclose everything, which is to make the reader want to read the story to get all of the veiled parts of the story. The omniscient narrator is also shown here, because the reader get to know what he thinks.“… he thought, maybe – maybe he could make this right” The short story takes place in the state Tacoma, Washington, USA. This can be seen in the very beginning of the short story, “It was raining as they drove out of Tacoma that morning” Tacoma...
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...sacrifice, marital unhappiness and escapism are often themes involving men and women in English Literature. Throughout history, stories have been filled with main characters living out fantasies and dreams, hoping for more out of their own lives, only to find they had what they wanted right in front of them, all along. These aforementioned these are the main focuses of the two stories I am going to write about, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” by James Thurber and “The Necklace,” by Guy de Maupassant. The main characters in these two stories are, Walter Mitty, in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” and Mathilde Loisel in “The Necklace.” Both characters are dreamers of a different, fancier or exciting life, which ultimately cause problems for each character. This paper will compare and contrast these two stories by showing, although each was written very differently, both are from different time periods, different languages, different social settings, and each have different outcomes, they are still very much the same. In “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” it portrays the inner soliloquy of a man’s mind flowing in and out of fantasies as he completes his routine tasks on an otherwise routine day. Walter Mitty is trapped in an unhappy marriage with an overbearing wife, who runs his life in every moment she is present in the story. Walter’s story begins deep in a fantasy battle, operating a Navy aircraft, showing his commanding officer he has no fear in his tasks. He is...
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...Cat in the Rain by Ernest Hemingway | Summary The short story "Cat in the Rain" was written by Ernest Hemingway in the 1920´s. It is about an American couple that spends their holidays in an Italian hotel. It is a rainy day and the American woman sees a cat in the rain, which she wants to protect from the raindrops. When she goes out of the hotel, which is kept by an old Italian who really seems to do everything to please that woman, and wants to get the cat, it is gone. After returning to the hotel room, she starts a conversation with her husband George, who is reading all the time, telling him how much she wants to have a cat and other things, for instance her own silver to eat with. Her husband seems to be annoyed by that and not interested at all. At the end of the story there is a knock on the door and the maid stands there holding a cat for the American woman in her hands.Peculiarities of the introduction The first thing that caught my eyes was the long description at the beginning. First there is a description of the environment in good weather, which means spring or summer, then a description of the momentary situation in the rain. This description creates an atmosphere that is sad, cold and unfriendly. To create this atmosphere Hemingway uses words such as "empty" or "the motorcars were gone". Later on, by looking at the relationship of the two Americans, you can see that this description was a foreshadowing of the state of the couple´s relationship: First it was...
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