Comparing Women In Susan Glaspell's Trifles And A Doll House

In both The Story of an Hour and Hills Like White Elephants, the authors Kate Chopin and Ernest Hemingway describe women and the desire to express themselves and be free and how men influence their decision making. Women strive for a sense of freedom and independence and have the yearning to convey themselves freely. In Kate Chopin’s and Ernest Hemmingway’s stories, the authors suggest the two female main characters in their stories feel suppressed for liberty. Louise Mallard in The Story of an Hour is sick and very lonely. She is

Gender plays a very crucial role in both of these stories. In Trifles, the men were criticizing Mrs.’s Wrights work and kept complaining about how dirty her kitchen was. When Ms hale tried to defend her, the attorney’s respond by saying, “Ah, loyal to your sex, I see”. Both women, Mrs hale and Mrs peters were very agitated by how the men were talking behind Mr’s Wrights back and when they found the quilt and asked if she was going to knot it or quilt it, the men were laughing at them. Also, when Mrs peters told the men that Mrs. writers was worried about her fruits , the sheriff responded by saying how a women is held for killing someone and the only thing she is worried about is her fruits.

Kate Chopin, the author of “The Story of an Hour,” was inspired to write her stories based from what had happened to her in her life. All the man in her life died, which affected her deeply and writing was the thing that helped her keep going. Susan Glaspell on the other hand, was the author of “A Jury of Her Peers,” who at the time rebelled against society’s expectations. Both women a the time were trying to address the issue that women were being thought as inferiors by man and were also mistreated. In the two stories there was irony, women were being viewed as inferior by the man, and the role of a women was the same in both stories.

Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen was highly criticized for undeniably demonstrating woman’s issues in the 19th century. While the play doesn’t change setting much at all, Ibsen clearly focuses in on the characterization of three insightful characters: Mrs. Linde, Nora, and Helmer. Mrs. Linde is a minor character; however, that doesn’t alter her effect on the play. She provides the mold for the perfect, idealized wife. Nora, the main character, develops rapidly in the play, and her character is a stark contrast to Mrs. Linde.

Someone who will cherish them for all eternity. In a close examination of the way Louise Mallard, the protagonist of “The Story of an Hour”, and Delia, the protagonist of “Sweat”, react to their encounters with their marriages demonstrates that authors Kate Chopin and Zora Neale Hurston both use short stories to tell similar stories about the difficulties of their emotional states in their marriages. First, it is seen that Louise Mallard is an unchanging character who values her freedom from her marriage. Throughout the story it becomes obvious how self-centered Louise Mallard is.

Literary Analysis “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin introduces us to Mrs. Mallard as she reacts to the sudden death of her husband. Chopin describes Mrs. Mallard’s emotions as sad, yet happy that her husband has been killed. Kate Chopin’s “ The Story of an Hour” argues that when a person is controlled and made to live under another person their mental state of mind is affected. The story also argues that when that person is freed from the controlling person their true self can finally be achieved. Kate Chopin portrays these themes by the use of character development; plot control, and irony throughout the story.

Section 1: Introduction Susan Glaspell’s Trifles is a play about the effect of gender differences on perceptions of duty, law, and justice. The play Trifles was a murder mystery that got investigated by the County Attorney (George Henderson), the Sheriff (Henry Peters) along with his wife (Mrs. Peters), and a neighbor farmer (Lewis Hale) with his wife (Mrs. Hale). The story took place in an isolated farm house that was miles from the rest of the community in the Midwest. The victim of this murder mystery was John Wright as he was found dead with a rope around this neck.

This was bitter irony since everyone thought Louise died from being excited to see her husband when she really died from not wanting to see him. “She thought of Leonce and the children. They were part of her life. But they need not have thought that they could possess her, body and soul. ”(Chopin 137).

Although there is no clear statement that shows Louise to have an oppressive marriage, there are ambiguous statements about the marriage that show she feels caged. During the event of finding out about Brently’s death, Louise did not respond “as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden wild abandonment” (Chopin), due to Brently’s death she is finally able to let out emotions that she has held in for so many years of being a dutiful wife. Once Louise is left alone to grieve she reflects upon her feelings and her marriage. The narrator points out that Louise knows she will cry again for him when she sees his funeral, remembering his “kind, tender hands...the face that had never looked save with love upon her” (Chopin).

Now she is no longer pitiful and heartbroken but joyful and excited for a life free of her husband’s dominant presence. The story says for the first time in her life, Mrs. Mallard prays for a long life. Gary Mayer describes Mrs. Mallard’s new situation by writing: "Louise's joy, it may be argued, is her thought of being single, not the realization that her husband is alive"(Mayer 95). When this change occurs, Chopin expresses Louise Mallard’s new found freedom by finally using her first name rather than her surname as she writes, “Louise, open the door!”(Chopin 237). This signifies the rebirth of a woman formally suppressed by the name of her husband; she is no longer defined by someone else, but she defines herself and her

Triumph over Trifles The struggles of women have subsisted in countless pieces of literature. Stereotypically speaking, women are not always seen as strong leading characters. Often women are found confined in stories as they are in life. Literature frees women in a way that real life simply cannot. Female authors as well as characters gain that feeling of freedom, due to the less constricting binds of literary writing.

Self-Identity and Freedom The story of an hour by Kate Chopin introduces us to Mrs. Mallard as she reacts to her husband’s death. In this short story, Chopin portrays the complexity of Mrs. Mallard’s emotions as she is saddened yet joyful of her loss. Kate Chopin’s story argues that an individual discovers their self-identity only after being freed from confinement.

Growing up as a woman has been quite difficult in this generation, however, growing up around thirty years ago must have been more difficult. Back in the 1900’s, women had different social norms to deal with in society. Women had to stay at home, be housewives, do the laundry, and cook while men went out and worked to obtain money for their family. In Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin, she tells the struggles that women went through back in the 1990 's and the social norms that women had to go through. Chopin addresses many instances of symbolism to portray the feeling Mrs. Mallard has about her own thoughts and experiences with or without a man in her life.

This shows a balance between gender roles, as well as the embracing progressive changes within culture and society. In the story “The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin, a third-person omniscient narrator, relates how Mrs. Louise Mallard, the protagonist, experiences the euphoria of freedom rather than the grief of loneliness after hearing about her husband’s death. Later, when Mrs. Mallard discovers that her husband, Mr. Brently Mallard, still lives, she realizes that all her aspiration for freedom has gone. The shock and disappointment kills Mrs. Mallard.

The role of women in literature crosses many broad spectrums in works of the past and present. Women are often portrayed as weak and feeble individuals that submit to the situations around them, but in many cases women are shown to be strong, independent individuals. This is a common theme that has appeared many times in literature. Across all literature, there is a common element that causes the suffering and pain of women. This catalyst, the thing that initiates the suffering of women, is essentially always in the form of a man.