Jane Campion's The Piano

In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, the main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard, is a woman with a heart problem that gets horrifying news that her husband has passed away in a train crash. When she starts thinking about her freedom, she gets excited; she is happy to start her new, free life. However, a few hours later her husband walks in the door and she finds out it was all a mistake. When she realizes her freedom is gone her heart stop and she then dies. In “Desiree’s Baby” Desiree is an orphaned woman who married her loving husband, Armand, and they are very much in love. In Kate Chopin’s short story is says, “"He was reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana?" (24-26). When they finally have a baby, they notice that the child is showing marks that he is a mix of two races. The husband blames the wife because of her unknown past and sends her and the baby away for good. Later, as he is cleaning out their old stuff, he finds a letter that says, in fact, he is the one of mixed race and not her. The husband then realizes he gave up everything he cared about over a silly mistake. Both of these stories show the women struggling in their marriages. It is typical for Kate Chopin to show the dominance in the male characters, especially in the marriages as it was in the “Old South”, when women were meant to serve their husbands. Rena Korb says, “In certain ways, "Desiree 's Baby" is

In The Piano Lesson, the central symbol of the play is the 137-year-old piano, an object that incarnates the family history. A gift purchased through the exchange for slaves, it originally exemplifies the interchangeability of person and object under the system of slavery. This traffic in flesh reaffirms a white kinship network at the expense of black ones (Johny, 2005) (Image, 42). The piano bears the marks of generations of both racial oppression and sexist gender ideology.

In The Piano Lesson, by August Wilson, Berniece struggles with her personal connection with the piano. Her families past reveal her relationship with the piano. The piano meant a lot of things to a lot of different people over the years. The piano is a complex and multilayers symbol; its meanings are both personal and political. For example, Berniece was affected by the piano positively and negatively. She had a sentimental connection with it and never wanted to get rid of it. But the piano had a lot of history behind it and it also carries a lot of meaning to it. Berniece stopped playing the piano for a while because of all the spirits inside of it and how they started to haunt other people. Berniece saw Boy Willie getting attacked by Sutter’s ghost and that made her realize she needs to let go of the past and play the piano again. But what was ironic is that she tried her best to forget the family history that came with the piano, she can never let go of her families past no matter what she does. This reveals that people should come to good terms with their past and learn to overcome it.

“The story of an hour” by Kate Chopin was a story that was ironical yet profoundly deep. As a student I have been asked to read “a story of an hour” many times, and every time I’m surprised by how I enjoy it. People can read thousands of stories in their life times and only a handful will every stand out to them, stories that can draw out an emotion or spark a thought are the ones that will standout more. For me and “a story of an hour” the thought of freedom is what draws me the most as a teenage I would feel a deep and heavy cage that traps me in its invisible snarl. It is hard to explain why one feels that way many a times feelings are just a way of showing frustration. Mrs. Mallard I assume has many frustrations, and she associated her imprisonment with her marriage to her husband. In many versions Mrs. Mallard says he is not a mean man and she did have feelings. It is just an unexplainable blanket of depression that anyone can fall through. Like a cold or an unsuspecting wounds one cannot prevent what one does not know of until it becomes apparent .as the story progresses I add more of my own emotion and slowing I draw a bridge that connects me to the basic feel of the story. In the begging I am just an outsider looking in not yet connected with their feeling, then the realization hits one and so does mine, and finally when Mrs. Mallard freedom from her is taken yet it is not. This is what make the story believable the unchained freedom of feelings that is taboo for

Screen and Visual images are important in the film; The Piano directed by Jane Campion. The screen and visual images are represented by Motifs. They are related to the dominating characters which makes them important.

The piano lesson playwright August Wilson. The piano lesion is about the African American family. It’s about the history of their family. “The Piano Lesson” is published in 1936, with all the action taking place in the house of Doaker Charles. Main character of the play is Berniece 's brash, impulsive, and fast-talking brother, the thirty-year-old Boy Willie introduces the central conflict of the play and berniece is the sister of boy Willie, “The Piano Lesson” is a brother and sister couple at war over the question of using the family legacy. Boy Willie Coming from Mississippi to he plans to sell the family piano and buy the land. Sister cares about the piano because that takes her family life.

Kate Chopin’s “The Story of An Hour” was published in 1894 in Vogue, during a time when women do not have any legal rights. They have low education level and have no opportunity to work; what they can do is stay at home and manage the family. All their lives, they rely on their husband. Women at that time do not think about why they should be treated this way; they were being silenced by society. Kate Chopin uses the character Mrs. Mallard as the representative of all women who wants freedom at that time, and she criticizes the way society treats them, yet the difference of Mrs. Mallard’s values compared to society’s makes her become egotistic and her death end up not changing people’s mind of how to treat women properly.

The theater opens, and the train sounds as August Wilson releases his fourth of ten plays The Piano Lesson, begins. August Wilson writes this play in order to find the legacy of the piano by using the connections of domestic drama to explore questions of personal and cultural inheritance (Elam 362). This play becomes the talk of the town, and in 1990 Wilson wins a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In August Wilson’s play, The Piano Lesson, the Reader Response Theory is apparent because the main action is not centered around music, but instead the play’s focus in based on the history of an African American family during the early 1900’s through anecdotes, irony, and symbolism.

The original African slaves in America had quietly disguised the dictates of the colonizers and it in the end taught them a feeling of inadequacy. The oppression and abuse they went up against in America brought with permanent injuries and incredible disgrace in the mind of the original slaves which they attempted to hide from their children. August Wilson's The Piano Lesson is a typical example which has an African-American sister and brother fighting over who the rightful heir of a piano, investigating the disgrace is confronted by blacks in America and its metamorphosis portrayed through the medium of theater. Wilson utilizes the "blood memory" as a locus of energy to hold over the psychic outcast endured by his characters.

The Piano - The most significant symbol is the 137-year-old piano. It is an object that displays and showcases years of their family history. It has numerous meanings and symbolizes a lot of things from those 137 years. Originally, It symbolizes the horrors of the system of slavery showing how exchangeable a human could be during that time. The piano continues to represent the hardships of that family and all they endured and ultimately is the emblem for that family and their history. It’s what keeps their family together in the end.

Within the story, there was a large amount of “checkouts” just as the title says. A quote that shows one of the “checkouts” in the story, from page 28 “The girl hated herself for not checking out at the boy’s line” this quote I think describes one of the “checkouts” because it says how the girl wanted to checkout in the boy’s line. In that part of the story we can infer that she wanted to go in his line to check him out, as she did the previous four weeks ago and how she is filled with regret that she didn’t.

Director Jane Campion places a motif throughout her film The Piano that is preoccupied by power struggles between males and females and European colonists and indigenous people. The "Prospero" syndrome is seen in attitudes of the Europeans regarding their belief that European culture, ideology, and religious practices are the only standards of behavior deemed acceptable for human beings, women in particular. The piano then becomes a symbol for the taboos that are placed on the Europeans and their lives. The character of Ada is placed at the center of a struggle between a male character who fully embodies the Kurtz persona with tattoos, close friendships with the Maori, and uninhibited sexual overtures, and one who clings to English ways. Harvey Keitel portrays this character, named Baines, while Sam Neill plays his foil. The character of Stewart embodies the Prospero persona by maintaining an ever-present "businesslike" relationship with the Maori and punishing those who transgress his code of conduct. The punishment of Flora, Ada’s daughter for misbehaving and simulating her mother’s sexual behavior and of Ada herself for loving Baines while conducting and affair at he same time with Stewart himself places a black mark

Everyone who reads a story will interpret things slightly different than the person who reads it before or after him or her. This idea plays out with most every story, book, song, and movie. These interpretations create conflict and allow people to discuss different ideas and opinions. Without this conflict of thought there is no one devoting time to debate the true meaning of a text. Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” tells about a woman who is informed of her husbands death, processes the emotions, and becomes content with this new status as an individual person – losing all the expectations that society expected her to live by within a marriage. This story however is written in a way that the reader has the final interpretation of the text. There are many different interpretations on not only the reason for the main character’s death, but also on the overwhelming emotions that she faces.

Women in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s had specific roles determined by the males who were dominant in their society. Women began to write stories which told their gender roles in that era. The authors of these stories lived in this time period and their stories reflect a lot of the traditional roles that were expected of them. The author’s purposes, were to tell about how marriage imprisoned women in this period of time. Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s stories provide examples of the gender roles. Their reasoning of writing these stories was to call on women of this era to learn how to empower themselves in this society.

Kate Chopin provides her reader with an enormous amount of information in just a few short pages through her short story, “The Story of an Hour.” The protagonist, Louise Mallard, realizes the many faults in romantic relationships and marriages in her epiphany. “Great care [is] taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death” (Chopin 168). Little do Josephine and Richards know, the news will have a profoundly positive effect on Louise rather than a negative one. “When she abandoned herself,” Mrs. Mallard opened her mind to a new way of life. The word usage shows that the protagonist experienced a significant change. This life wouldn’t be compromised by her partner’s will, which will enable her to live for