субота, 14. мај 2011.

Emotional repression and marriage in '' The Story of an Hour'' by Kate Chopin

   Chopin presents Mrs. Mallard as a sympathetic character with strength and insight. As Louise understands the world, to lose her strongest familial tie is not a great loss so much as an opportunity to move beyond the "blind persistence" of the bondage of personal relationships. In particular, American wives in the late nineteenth century were legally bound to their husbands' power and status, but because widows did not bear the responsibility of finding or following a husband, they gained more legal recognition and often had more control over their lives. Although Chopin does not specifically cite the contemporary second-class situation of women in the text, Mrs. Mallard's exclamations of "Free! Body and soul free!" are highly suggestive of the historical context.

Beyond the question of female independence, Louise seems to suggest that although Brently Mallard has always treated their relationship with the best of intentions, any human connection with such an effect of permanence and intensity, despite its advantages, must also be a limiting factor in some respects. Even Louise's physical description seems to hint at her personality, as Chopin associates her youthful countenance with her potential for the future while mentioning lines that "bespoke repression and even a certain strength." Although neither her sister nor Brently's friend Richards would be likely to understand her point of view, Louise Mallard embraces solitude as the purest prerequisite for free choice.    
    Mrs. Mallard’s life had been devoid of emotion to such an extent that she has even wondered if it is worth living. The repression of emotion may represent Mrs. Mallard’s repressive husband, who had, up until that point, “smothered” and “silenced” her will. Therefore, her newfound freedom is brought on by an influx of emotion (representing the death of the figure of the repressive husband) that adds meaning and value to her life. For, though Mrs. Mallard initially feels fear when she hears of her husband’s death, the strength of the emotion is so powerful that Mrs. Mallard actually feels joy (because she is feeling). Since, this "joy that kills," ultimately leads to Mrs. Mallard's death, so that one way of interpreting this is that the repression of Mrs. Mallard's feelings is what killed her in the end. She realizes how after her husband’s apparent death that she was "free, free, free". This shows how her life would change and she is now a new person and removed from the repressed life she faced before. No evidence is given in the story about how she is repressed, but her reaction of his death and her new found confidence and freedom is enough. This repression of herself that she dealt with she was now removed from and would be able to be free.
    Kate Chopin negatively portrays marriage in the story as being the “blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature”. Instead of the story being about a poor wife who has just lost her beloved husband, the reader now can perceive the situation for what it is. A wife finally free of the domestic servitude called “marriage” she was trapped in. The main character Mrs. Mallard is liberated from husband Bentley Mallard through his death, because when he was alive, he would use his “powerful will” to bend hers.



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