Nathan Valentino Setting Analysis Of “The story of an Hour” “The Story of an Hour” is a story about a woman, Mrs. Mallard, who comes to find that her beloved husband Brently Mallard was killed in a railroad incident. She mourns of his death in a different way than most would and tries to find a way to get over it. There is a drastic twist to the story when through the front door walks Brently Mallard who had actually not died. Then Mrs. Mallard drops to the floor dead, “of joy that kills”. (The Story of an Hour)
The setting takes place inside the House of Mrs. Mallard. She hears the news of her husband’s death and goes and locks herself inside her room. “When the storm of grief had spend itself, she went away to her room alone. She would have no one to follow her. ” (The Story of an Hour) This seems to be one of the most important lines in the whole entire story because the author Kate Chopin uses the setting of a room alone with no one to follow to describe her sense of freedom and abandonment at the same time.
This setting describes her abandonment because obviously directly after the death of her better half she feels like a part of herself had died. She is weeping because she will never see him again and she will miss the memories that they have shared. Mrs. Mallard appears as if she is simply at a loss for words and doesn’t even know what to say feel or do. She has herself and is alone in her room with only her mind and thoughts to be her companion. This could be quite depressing, which supports the feeling of loneliness.
The setting of the being in the room alone makes you feel plain out sad. The setting starts to take on a very different type of emotional tie to Mrs. Mallard when she begins to get feelings of freedom. She is not trying to hide that she loved Brently Mallard but now that he is gone, she feels as if she’s free to do as she pleases. She has just herself to worry about and no one else. Being alone in her room starts to become relaxing to her because she feels free, a feeling she hasn’t felt in many years. “Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her.
Spring days, and summer days, all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life may be long. ” (The Story of an Hour) This shows that although he is gone and she is extremely upset, she can now mover onto a new chapter of HER life, a life that she only has to live for herself and no one else. On any given day she can go out and do what she pleases as she pleases and not have a soul to worry about. This is where the bedroom scene changes into a place of mourning and loneliness to a place of freedom and potential.
The fact that it says “and nobody was to follow” in The Story of an Hour, is basically saying that she is on her own to do as she pleases. The bedroom alone is definitely a place of thought for Mrs. Mallard and directly symbolizes the two different meanings of freedom and loneliness. The setting really gives us a great understanding of what is going through her mind and symbolizes her emotions as she mourns and finds peace at the death of her husband . Nathan Valentino English 112 Prof. Tom Flanigan 2/6/13 The Effects of Under Appreciation on a Housewife
In Linda Pastan’s poem “Marks” a woman is speaking about how she feel underappreciated in her family after all the things she does for them. The poem is set up almost as a report card, the things she has to do as a housewife are her subjects, and the responses that she receives from her family are compared to the grade. The poem goes to show what under-appreciation from her family will do to a woman’s self esteem. She starts the poem off by saying that her husband gives her an A for last nights cooking, an incomplete for ironing, and a B plus in bed.
This could be looked at as the husband sees his wife as someone who makes dinner and has sex with him, and should’ve ironed his clothing, but we all know women want to be looked at as more than that. They want to be appreciated and loved by their husbands and not just a tool, or slave to them. She is feeling underappreciated because if this and it make her question her self worth. After her husband shows his non-existent appreciation for her, she turns to her son, who is not much better. Her son goes on to tell her that he is just an average mother, but if she put her mid to it that she could improve. This has to be very discouraging because every good mother tries to be the best they can for their children, and for a child to flat out tell them that they aren’t doing their job right is disrespectful and cruel. Pastan chooses the order of people that she gets approvals from to show that at first the husband, who may be unconcerned at times, reacted. But that’s not the worst thing to happen to a woman.
When she turns to the son, he says she’s all right. Men are different in the way they express their emotions so this doesn’t completely destroy her confidence. Finally they leave the daughter for last because people would look at the daughter in this poem as being a younger girl, who would be happy to tell her mother how much she appreciates her. She turns to the daughter and the daughter simply tells her that she believes in a pass/fail and that she passes. She had nothing more to say.
This would be hurtful to the mother because she would’ve expected the daughter to be sympathetic towards her but she didn’t get that. At the end of the poem she says “Wait till they learn/That I’m dropping out” (11-12). This shows that her self-esteem has been so diminished from the under appreciation of her family that she wants to give up on them. They don’t know that she’s trying to do her best so she wants to prove a point to them that they’ll miss her when she leaves. This shows that the under appreciation of a woman will simply drive her away.
