symbolism

symbolism

In the short fiction "The Story of an Hour", Kate Chapin depicted Mrs. Mallard as a typical Southern housewife who just received the unfortunate news about her husband’s death. While picturing about her coming widowhood, Mrs. Mallard went through a series of unexpected emotion—from extremely depressed to extremely contented—resulted from a lengthy period of dependent marriage which exhausted her over time. However, her bliss did not last too long because her husband was lucky enough to stay away from the disaster and survived. His return marked the end of her soul freedom and the end of her life; she died of joy. In another story “The Storm”, Chapin illustrated Calixta—again a housewife—who experienced emotional changes in short period of time. Calixta changed from a decent wife to a lustful lover of her old friend, Mr. Alcee. She had an amorous affair with Mr. Alcee in a stormy day while her husband Bobinot and son Bibi were not home. Despite the differences in plots, the two stories expressed the yearnings of married women for freedom mentally and sexually. Moreover, in both stories Chapin shrewdly took the advantage of the settings, subtly positioning them in order to symbolize the character’s emotions and situations.
In “The Story of an Hour”, the environment scenes around Mrs. Mallard’s house suggested a change of her feelings. She began to feel a rousing delight deep in her sadden heart: a spark of hope. This sentiment was suggested in the image of “patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds.” (524) The picture was the similar to the light in the end of the tunnel where lost people suddenly found the escape path; Mrs. Mallard, being depressed for her husband’s death, found the escape for her life. The dark cloud in this picture—with the nature of darkness—symbolized her long, exhausted marriage and the patch of blue sky—associated with   brightness—symbolized her chance of being freed.   In addition, we...