The Expectation Of Mrs. Mallard In The Story Of An Hour

Although the comedy suggests a social world in which women exist in utter subordination to fathers and husbands, in the plot, two women bring about the clarifications that unmask the villain. The virtuous wife, Elmire, object of Tartuffe’s lust, and the articulate servant girl, Dorine, confront the immediate situation with pragmatic inventiveness… [for] both women have a clear sense of right and wrong. Within the short story, The Story of an Hour, written by Kate Chopin, the tale of an eluded housewife’s true emotions are liberated. Mrs. Mallard, a women distressed with a heart disorder, went through life married to a man she felt trapped and held bondage to. She hid away these most undesirable emotions, like any common 1800’s wife would, and acted with quite a perplexing amount of serenity. Normally, women were not independent during the 19th century. Traditionally, they did all the difficult work within the
Mallard entered her room, are quite shocking. The typical expectation of Mrs. Mallard would be of a weeping woman filled with distress and grief, yet instead she serenely sits down: "There stood, facing an open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair." This is the first signal of the unusual behavior she begins to exhibit. The word “comfortable” that is used to describe the armchair is disturbing because it is most commonly used in referring to something pleasant. A newly widowed woman would most likely not look upon a chair as comfortable, shortly after receiving the dreadful information. As she is resting upon the armchair, she suddenly begins examining the nature outside the window: "The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves." All these descriptions are beautiful symbolisms of