Mid-term

I could not faind the english quotation marks!!!

1)What is Louis Mallards opinion of marriage? Indicate the paragraph that suggests it?

2) Why is there so much description of what is outside the window when Louise is alone in her room?

3) Why did the author make the story so short?

4)Explain how Louise can feel joy and sadness at the same time?

1) Louise Mallard’s opinion on marriage in not like the one of her era. She sees marriage as something that is oppressive. She saw it as a situation that lets the powerful will of a husband bending yours, not being able to think for and about you. You cannot be free; therefore, marriage is something that deposed you of things.

« There would be no one to live for during those coming years… upon it in that brief moment of illumination. »

2) The reason why there is so much description is that the outside word that she sees from her window in at the same time the description of her way of feeling, the state of her soul. The trees where growing, it was spring period; therefore, she was growing the same way, waking up, filling fresh… The sky gives us the impression of the growth of Mrs. Mallard and blue sky is a symbol of freedom and future life. The many descriptions where present because the main character was herself observing this things that were in front of her, and it was nature that made her fill a live again, youthful and so on.

3) The reason why the story was so short was to put an emphasis on the title of this short story «Story of an hour». The title is very appropriate, because she, Mrs. Mallard, only had one hour with the knowledge that her husband was dead. An hour is not very long, so the story so was not very long to read. The author wanted us to fill the same way than the main character, that it wasn’t long the period of grief and the time past too fast. The story being so short also gives the reader the impression that the main character probably did not have and felt that she had enough time to process all the thoughts that where passing through her maid, this is why, I think, she dies at the end because she didn’t sidle down in her new life that just had begun one hour ago.

4) Louise feels sadness and joy at the same time. The reason she was sad, was that she had realized that all this years, she was imprisoned and not being how she wanted to be and how she could have been. She regretted her old way of life, not living out her youth; therefore, not living her life that had a lot of potential. She realized that she was in an unhappy marriage

She also feels joy, the joy of having full control on her life, being free, filling all her youth again, rediscovering how she is, dreaming of how her future will be. She discovered the « strongest impulse of her being!» that was «this possession of self-assertion».

B)

The message of the story is revealed at the end, with one sentence, with the use of Irony « When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills. » This sentence means the opposite of what it means. We realize that the doctors are wrong, and that she doesn’t die of happiness of seeing her husband alive, but of sadness that her past would become ones again, her new reality, a reality she has realized she was miserable in. It is with this sentence that we realize the meaning of everything written, everything falls in to place and it is there that we realize the Irony of the whole text.

In "The Story of an Hour," Kate Chopin use Irony, a literary device that is useful for giving stories many unexpected twists. During the whole story, the readers think that the death of the main characters husband causes great grief to this last one, «Story of an Hour», uses Irony by making us believe that Mrs.but the auteur makes us think that Millard is in great grief because of this last event, that would be normal to think so and is most likely to be normal, as specially in the time period when this story was written, in 1894, where divorce and being a women with no husband was badly seen. Every description present is to build up the effect that we get at the end of the story. It is through Mrs. Mallard's reaction to her husband's death that we can see Irony.

The story suggests that death not always cause grief. In the case of a unhappy marriage, losing your husband can be a moment of happiness and freedom that you will love for richer or poorer, in sickness and in death! At the end of the story, Louise must have told herself: I was so miserable living life with my husband; consequently, I prefer being dead than to spend the rest of my life with him. Marriage is only one side of it; imprisonment is the other. This text makes us think of how we often do not think outside the mentality of are era. For example, Louise’s friends and doctor could not imagine that she was maybe not happy with her husband; it was not even a possibility for them. I think that it is maybe the same thing are days, we follow ways of life and values that are the most common to the other people or are surroundings.