Faye and Mrs. Mallard

Bonnie L. Rodriguez Galvan
Professor Boylan
English 112
30 May 2013
The Comparison of Faye and Mrs. Mallard The wives from “A Sorrowful Woman” and Mrs. Mallard from the story “A story of an Hour” are stories of women who share similar backgrounds and fate. Both stories offer a revealing glimpse of extremely unhappy marriages due to being forced into stereotypical roles. Both women express feelings of being trapped in their marriages and trapped in their socially expected characters. They are identified by their role as a wife and mother. The wife in “A Sorrowful Woman” is depressed with her life, so much so, "The sight of them made her so sad and sick she did not want to see them ever again"(p.1). Faye has come to detest her life, the sight of her family, and withdraws into a deep depression. Faye is unhappy in her life because she wants more than to be just a wife and mother. She wants a life outside the home but doesn’t know how to get it, so she blames her existing life and family. She is conflict with her desires for life outside the home and how society expects her to behave. Her husband is likable, strong, and in control. “He managed everything"(p.3). He never gets mad; he makes no demands of her to improve. He enables her “sickness” by preparing her “medication,” hiring help, and keeping her child away. He doesn’t seem to know how to help her or how to communicate with her. In his effort to be in control and to fix things he actually shows that she has no value to him, the child, or the house. Clearly he believes he’s in control. Her depression turns into anger with her life. She blames her family and acts out, "After supper several nights later, she hit the child. She had known she was going to do it when the father would see"(p. 2). In the end, she knows her life isn’t enough, but it isn’t the family’s fault. She prepares her family a wonderful meal, the last meal she will prepare for them. Her key to freedom was to commit suicide. Mrs. Mallard also felt trapped by her role as wife. She appeared to have never really loved her spouse. Mrs. Mallard was intelligent and she understood the “right” way for women to behave. When she learned that Brently had died she cried dramatically she knew this is what other women would do. She also knew that she would grieve in her own time, but she felt elation at the thought of independence. In fact the happiest time of her life was the hour she thought her husband was dead. Mrs. Mallard didn’t appear to have feelings of guilt. She felt free. She felt joy. Chopin mentioned that Mrs. Mallard had ‘heart trouble” which suggested that she had both a physical condition and an emotional condition within her heart. One could conclude that Mrs. Mallard did not die from shock that her husband was alive, or fear that he was a ghost but that she died from heartbreak. She had felt the most happy with the thought that she was finally free only to have it taken away with him walking in the door. Her freedom came with her death. The wife in “A Sorrowful Woman” felt trapped and viewed her only escape was to take her own life. Mrs. Mallard also felt trapped and for an hour felt the joy of freedom. The loss of that freedom killed Mrs. Mallard. Both women were in unhappy marriages, both suffered depression and both were only free from this with their death.