This is an excellent topic to compare and contrast using
these two texts. However, I would argue that there is little notion of any sort of
female freedom conveyed in either text. "Girl," for example, is basically a diatribe
from a mother to a daughter containing a huge long list of instructions concerning the
role of a woman in that culture. For example:
Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on
the stone heap; wash the colour clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to
dry; don't walk barehead in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet
oil...
And so the list
continues. The notion of a very restricted gender role for women is created by this
repeated direction. When the daughter tries to answer back, she is shouted down very
quickly, and we can see in the final sentence of this story that she lives in a culture
where sexual deviance can be easily assumed if you are not
careful.
"The Story of an Hour" is slightly different in
the way that it presents a woman who finds her freedom after the news of the death of
her husband. As she contemplates her new life alone, she is struck by an incredible
feeling of release and invigorating freedom:
There would be no one to live for her during
those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending
hers in that blind persistence which which men and women believe they have a right to
impose a private will upon a
fellow-creature.
However,
ironically, having savoured this freedom, the shock of finding her husband safe and well
kills Mrs. Mallard, presenting an overall picture of female oppression in her
culture.
Thus I would argue that what unites these two
excellent stories is the lack of freedom that women are able to have in their respective
cultures.
No comments:
Post a Comment