Subjects:
unanswered questions about what is going on in the story. Although what is going on in
the story is unclear at times, the author really gets inside the mind of the main character,
Louise Mallard, who is the wife of Brently Mallard. Brently is apparently killed in a
gruesome train wreck, but then later comes back suprising her to death, literally. She dies
of a heart attack at the sight of him. This story also leaves the reader with many unknown
facts about time period, theme, and background of characters.
Although it is hard at first to predict whether the author is male or female, there
are certain significant aspects of the story that help the reader decide that the author is
female. The reader sees that Louise, after she learns of her husband’s untimely death,
does not seem to be showing her sadness very much, and is saying repeatedly that she is
free from something. This shows that even though she is somewhat upset t
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a male writer because it is hard for male writers to have this kind of sensitivity about
issues that deal with women and women’s rights and freedoms. This kind of writing seems like it could only come from a woman who too has a
need for liberation from something. These are likely to have been
the feelings of many females during the late 1800’s into the early 1900’s. Even though Louise had just
lost a loved one, she still felt very free and somewhat happy.
Overall this short story greatly shows the feelings of a woman who’s need for
liberation greatly outweighs her sorrow when she is struck by tragedy. Louise, although heartbroken by the death of her husband,
had a stronger feeling of freedom than of sorrow for her husband. When Louise’s liberated thoughts left her when she
saw her husband, all she could feel was extreme happiness to be seeing her husband once
again. The author could have been trying to show that liberation was needed for
women through the thoughts of the main character, Louise. The author
wanted to show that Louise was not at all just disregarding the fact that her husband is
dead, but rather the author wanted to show that Louise’s feelings of liberation were much
stronger than the feelings of sorrow.
The most significant underlying theme of this story would be that when women
have a great desire to feel free, these feelings of liberation can be felt by women even
under the worst of situations. Louise needed this
feeling so badly that she would feel some kind of joy when she got it no matter what the
circumstances. It shows her
feelings and really leaves the reader to decide why the main character is thinking some of
the things that she is thinking. Many of the other aspects of this story are left untold and
left for the reader to resolve. Although this is a small
detail it is most significant in telling the time period that the story took place.
Essay's Topics
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