The story of an hour

Kate Chopin is probably one of the best well known children short story writers of the 19^th century. Chopin text “The story of an Hour” is an incredible short story that is packed with much information about women rights, the repression of women and foreshadowing. "The Story of an Hour" was published in the United States in 1849 during the time of the civil war and the gold rush. Most Americans women at the time were also fighting for rights just like African Americans and other of the time.

Kate Chopin works defines the time in which she was apart of. The text "The Story of an Hour", unveils how women of the time were mistreated and “their will was easily bended”, by male desires. Chopin had experienced a lot of this during her life time and wanted to give the world a better perspective of what was really going on in the household and women thoughts. Mainly the mistreatment that men were inflicting on women and the superiority men were giving at birth. During her time however she was not the most popular female author.

"The Story of an Hour" is one of Chopin many shot stories."The Story of an Hour" is about a girl who finds out that her husband has died in a train accident. Upon finding this information out she is stricken with sadness to the point she cries. Yet, during this crying process she feels joy because she feels free from the bondage of her husband. She is in utter happiness and can not understand why should is happy at the fact her husband will not be around.

Then she realizes that the reason she is happy is because she will have her own independence. This is where the reader has to unfold what is going on in the text this is a cry out for women independence in a male dominated society. Plus during this time women still did not have the right to vote. Chopin unfolds this so delicately because she depicts this by the women happiness in the story. The character Mrs. Mallard is proud of her independence, and she locks herself in a room. At first she does not come out of the room but when she is ready to come out her husband walks through the front door and she has a hear attack and dies.

A very conscience reader however would have picked up that she was going to have some type of heart condition due to the fact that in the beginning of the story it said “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble” (Chopin) This gives perfect foreshadowing to the fact that by the end of the story Mrs. Mallard has a hear attack. This is a perfect set up for what later happens in the story yet this untimely death is odd. 

The yellow wall paper

I loved this story it has to be one of the best of the year. I love physiological thrillers they are so good. This story I felt highlight the treatment of women in the 1800 not only were women being treated unfair I felt that the yellow wallpaper described this dominance of attributes. In the story the main characters husband kept her from making any decision or doing anything at all that would have help her progress in fact he kept her like a prisoner who would not go crazy being treated this way. Even on page 356 she say he hates to even have me write a word if this is not male dominance to the max then I do not know what is. Not only is it unfair to be treated this way but it show how women where looked at as objects and or pet rather than equals.
I feel also that Perkins is writing for change and showing the world that believe it or not women can do the impossible and that they should be treated as equal I think that why the ending of the story is so dramatic when she step over her husband and walks away. Yet I felt this same message was trying to be delivered in Alcott's "A Whisper in the Dark,"

Tom Sawyer

I really enjoyed reading Tom Sawyer, it was a great story. However, I like the character Ragged Dick because he had more on a city-orientated lifestyle which I can relate to more. However, I did love Tom Sawyer's cleverness an country intelligence. He was very intriguing due to the fact he could work his way out of any situation and; I also enjoyed how he used religion making fun of it with the tickets in the bible. On Pg. 16 the quote "Oh come now you don't mean to let on that, you like it." I thought it was really clever how Tom tricked his friend into doing his work. Also, I thought it was interesting how Mark Twain depicted slaves in the book. Even though they were free, the slaves were still ignorant and distasteful.

On Pg. 19, I loved how Tom Sawyer referred to himself as “…if he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would have now comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body if obliged to do, and that Play consists of what a body is obliged to do.” Mark Twain, uses the character of Tom Sawyer to speak to audience and make a personal commentary about himself.

The Yares of Black Mountain Prompt

What I found interesting about the story we read that no one in class seemed to mention is this notion of where in the world was this women going what was her final destination. Also, like Bill said in class what was the purpose of the description of the baron place? Why was this so relevant to the text? I felt the baron description had a deeper meaning that to city people country people seem dull and baron. I use to always wonder being from Miami what did people in the country do all day because with so much land there was no distraction or activities. What kind of life was this that you could have been so spread out from your neighbor that you would only see them once a week. I mean these people seemed to be so involved in nature doing their own farming and so forth. I just felt like it was a story to kind of mock or make fun of the country life. Plus the only reason why this girl was treated fairly was for the simple facts that she had a baby seemed like she would have been treated bad if the baby was not around. I really mainly did not like this story out of all the story we have read this is been the worst story of them out it seemed pointless and I was over analyzing everything because it was so pointless.

Ragged Dick

So far through the text we have read we have discovered that girls and boys are quite different. I felt in reading a lot of these stories most of these girls were stereotyped into their roles the were sugar and spice and everything nice. For example you were not a women until your learned how to clean and act proper. Girls seem to have been taught how to act as opposed to a boy where it was learned. Also boys were the stereotypical boys that loved to play in the dirt and work. Ragged dick was a prime example sarcastic dirty and a harder worker he was a true mans man. Everyone seem to respect him and he was the hero of our text because he might have had a little bit of bad in him and gambled but he was a hard worker. Someone you could look up to. I felt this was unfair because if a girl gambled and did some of the things that ragged dick she would be ridiculed. Capitola tried to work and she was looked down upon and was almost taken to jail. Yet its ok for a boy to hustle on the street to make his way of living but not ok for a girl to do such a thing.

First off in class we talked about how they put women in insane asylums because the husband could not deal with them anymore. Let’s face it nothing was wrong with here at all nothing that could be displayed as being insane Uncle and Dr. Karnac just teamed up and decided to put her in the insane asylum without her wanting to be put in there. The reason I could see is that she did not want to marry her uncle and out of his rage of her not doing what she wants he then therefore took matters into his own hands. So he could take all of her assets and all her money. I felt the best thing to summarize these events were "...for love of gain was as strong as love of science; both were amply gratified, and I, poor victim, was given up to be experimented upon, till by subtle means I was driven to the insanity which would give my uncle full control of my fortune and my fate." (p.246) Honestly I would have broke out and killed someone gave them a reason to call me crazy.
We see this absence of the mother and we see the importance of how important it is for a mother to be around to help with the growth of a child help her mature and develop into a women I fill Sybil never got that and also the protection. Sybil needed to be protected by men like her uncle but I wonder could her mother have even done that being a women of that time. I Really was appla

Little Hand

Well since we allowed to be creative on this one. I will first say the old man hurricane he is the funniest character I have encountered thus far I am really thinking of making my face book profile of him. He is a rich senile and mean old man who gives smart remarks to everyone and is probably barley able to walk. I just felt such an attachment to this guy even the way he orders people around in New York as if he lived there. It reminded me of people back home in Miami a lot of older people come to Miami thinking that it is a great place to retire when it full of kids and a huge party life so I love this guys I cant say enough about how funny he is. Oh wait the part where he going to stick his walking stick down someone throat was pretty funny. Also, he also very sneaky with his plan with Capitola is very creative and scary. It shows that through time people still hold grudges and sometimes it never changes. Even when there to old to be holding grudges and should be doing the right thing. He defiantly defines the saying you can not teach and old dog new tricks he still lives in the mentality of his time. Yet it always takes something drastic for people to change.