Comparison Essay Between Story Of An Hour And Rose For Emily

REPRESSION OF WOMAN IN THE 19th CENTURY

Since the beginning of time, women have been treated as second class citizens. Therefore, women were forced to face many problems. Because of this women were repressed. At that time, the Napoleonic Code stated that women were controlled by their husbands and cannot freely do their own will without the authority of their husband. This paper shows how this is evident in the "Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin and " A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner. In both stories, the use of literary elements such as foreshadowing, symbolism, and significant meaning of the titles are essential in bringing the reader to an unexpected and ironic conclusion.

The background of both authors, which was from the South, we can conclude how they could described the situations that they faced such as political and social presumptions problems especially for women at that time. The story explains how

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Chopin wrote how women were to be "seen but not heard". "The wife cannot plead in her own name, without the authority of her husband, even though she should be a public

trader, or noncommunicant, or separate in property. " (Kreis 1) This is one of the Code Napoleon that shows women have no right and position at that time. However after World War II, most of the men were going to war and left the women, who make them finally, could get their freedom to do anything or their own because they have to do it to survive.

Chopin's stories seem very modern in different ways even though it was written about two hundred years ago. Chopin says that it "..does not always find that marriage necessarily requires that a wife be dominated by their husband,.."(Grabovoi 198) and she was trying to show that women can get along just fine without having man interfere. The story represents a disdain for the way women are treated in some relationships and in society as well. "Her concern with women's place in society and in marriage, her refusal mix guilt with sexuality..."(Grabovoi 200).

A late eighteen hundreds were a rough time for women and there were not the options like divorce that is available now. Through Mrs. Mallard, we could see the social repression that women felt at that time. Therefore, in this story there is so much repression, Chopin said "They were locked into marriages" that probably loved. At least Mrs. Mallard says her husband "never looked at her save with love" (Chopin 34).

In The Story of an Hour, Chopin was simply referred to the character as Mrs. Mallard - an appendage of Brently Mallard - then when she was free, she was referred to as Louise, her first name. Chopin was trying to say that marriage makes women repressed

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and "bends the will" (35). Even though marriage does bend the will, I assume that Brently Mallard was still a good man because he never looked upon her wife with

anything but love. She knows that her husband loved her, but that is never be enough for

her to feel any love from him as it says "and yet she loved him, sometimes"(34). Chopin does not seem to think that it is the husband's plan to "bend" her will to make their marriage successful.

Mrs, Mallard was breaking the lens means that she broke what has tied her to her husband which is repression. It seems that she only lived (mentally and spiritually) for one hour during her whole life when she knew that her husband was dead. She went to her room and looked out the "open window" (Chopin 33). The language is foreshadowing the ironic women moment of happiness that she felt at that time being set free. Free from her repression that she had.

Finally, when Louise Mallard found out that her husband had never been on the train and shows up at the door of their house, her heart gives out and the cause ironically is given by the doctor as "the joy that kills." This ending describes how the repression of women at that time was really intense could make a women die when they lose freedom.

William Faulkner's story "A Rose for Emily" reveals the life of Emily Grierson who lives a secluded life, not leaving her home for over ten years, while also living in a state of madness. The extent of Emily's madness is finally revealed at the end, where it is found that she has been living with the body of her dead boyfriend for years, sleeping next to him. " A Rose" in the title of the story gives significant meaning that represented Death in this story.

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Faulkner also makes effective use of symbolism to express the theme, with two of the important symbols being death and taxes. Death features as symbols in the form of

Emily's own death, the death of her father and