Josephine's Narrate: A Short Story

Josephine Baker was born Freda Josephine MacDonald in St. Louis, Missouri to her unwed parents: Carrie McDonald and Eddie Carson. Her father soon left the family and Josephine had to help her mother support herself and her three younger half-siblings. At age eight, she got a job working as a maid for a white family (Robinson). At age 12, she had dropped out of school to work. By age 14, she had moved out, been married, and separated from her first husband. She would later go onto marry and divorce three more men. Never was she financially dependent on any man, including her husbands.

The irony of Mrs. Mallard’s response to the news of her husband’s death lies in the fact that her reaction did not constitute what a common reaction to death entails: extreme disbelief, prolonged heartache, and violent hysterics. When her sister Josephine breaks the news to Mrs.

not impressed at all. She inscribes, “When the father visits, he climbs up the stairs muttering with

Ciaran Mallory, the coldly passionate Scottish werewolf. She’d spent one single night in his castle as his captive, prey to his every sexual whim.

Who am I? I am Josephine Allbrandi, I am 17 years old, and I can be exactly whoever I want to be. About 6 months ago I wouldn't have felt the same. I hated my life at that time. My Grandma and my mum controlled my life and I always felt like I couldn't be who I wanted to be. They controlled me in every way possible. I hated it. I wanted to be free. I wanted to be emancipated. Did that happen? Yes. But. Not in the way I thought. I wanted to be completely free from everything to do with Italy. I did not want to be Italian, but I did not want to be Australia. I was confused. But I'm not anymore, at least I hope I'm not. These are the events that shaped my perspective to what it is today.

The sense of being “free” and “independent” were nothing more than imaginations. They could have hoped to be things of such, but society has limited them to be caring wives and mothers instead. Mrs. Mallard has been compelled to follow the life course that society has set for her. In a society where holding a specific position in a household is the “norm,” one may tend to live in a hypocritical world full of lies in order to be segregated from society. Louise struggles to endure the confines of society in the 19th century that has limited her individuality. In the story, her sister, Josephine, took great care to tell Louise of her husband’s death. Josephine “veiled hints that revealed in half concealing,” which exemplifies that women were seen as fragile and sentimental in this time period. Furthermore, when Mrs. Mallard isolates herself in a room to deal with her inner emotions, her sister pleads her to come out, insisting that she will make herself ill if she refuses too. The way Josephine presents herself as worrisome and thoughtful portrays that women were

“Now I gotta pee,” I mutter in disgust. Slipping from my sleeping bag I am about to unzip the tent when I hear the sounds of the can line. Something has broken through the parameter.

     Josephine, Mrs. Mallard’s sister is a more traditional character for the particular time period in which this story was written. While she and Mrs. Mallard may not seem so different on the surface, at the heart of the matter she is almost a foil. Josephine expects her sister to make herself sick with grief over the loss of her husband. After all, is not a woman to live but for her husband? Or at least, that was according to most of the thinking at the time. Instead, Mrs. Mallard was “drinking in a very elixir of life” (190). She may have even been more healthy at that moment than she ever had with her husband. A person’s level of happiness has been known to affect health, after all.           

“Brently Mallard” was the first name I read as my eyes ran down the black and white page. My whole body had never felt more sensations all at once. Brently was my best friend, but still, I stood there without a second twitch at the thought of my own sorrow instead I burst through the doors and sprinted down the street toward the Brently’s house. Upon reaching the door I had second thoughts, how could I possibly bare this news to Mrs. Mallard myself? I then headed back down the street to the door of Josephine’s house, she was Louis's sister, and therefore would be able to break the news in a much simpler way than I. This was a

Finished, the stalker peered deep into Lila Ross eyes, and wondered how the woman would she'd react when she became aware that man who'd just brought her to climax was a rapist and murderer. Soon, but not tonight, he'd discover that answer, and was glad when Lila made it clear that she wasn't looking for pillow-talk, or for him to remain any longer than necessary. Mark Dubuois had had just about enough of being friendly to Lila Ross to last him a lifetime.

During the beginning of Leah’s freshman year, she was a duckling learning how to swim.

Louise sister Josephine is worried about how her sister is making herself sick when her sister is actually happy from being free from her oppressive and unhappy marriage. Then towards the end the audience can see where the story is going but Louise the character doesn’t seem to have a clue. Mr. Mallard dies and Mrs. Mallard is crying because she is happy and not sad. Then Louise dies and her husband is actually still alive. Then after she has died everyone thinks she died from joy, when in fact it was the opposite.

When I interviewed Mrs.Stephens, some of the things I thought I knew but was wrong was the amount of time going to school. Some of the things about teaching that I knew was correct was the stress and hard work. This interview will affect my future plans by thinking more into teaching before taking classes. This will also affect my long term goals by planning my classes before I enroll into classes at a university. I kinda knew all the information that Mrs.Stephens told me about teaching but I did not know about other the other jobs in education. I really didn’t find anything surprising about teaching that I didn't already know. How long does it take to get comfortable with the children because it might be hard for the kids to trust you at first.

Josephine, who is her sister, is concerned that she may be harming herself and is persistent in her quest to be admitted to the room. The entire story is centered on saving Mrs. Mallard right from the time the breaking of the sad news of her husband's demise had to be done in a way that would not be fatal to her up to the time when her husband returns home and Richard tries to shield her from seeing her husband from the fear that she will suffer an attack due to the huge surprise (Berkove 153).

This story is about a wife named Louise Mallard who has heart trouble, so she must be informed carefully about her husband’s death. Her sister, Josephine, is unfortunately the one who has to break the news to newly widowed wife. One of her husband’s friends, Richard, learned about her husband’s death when he was reading the newspaper and heard about the crashing of a train that Brently was on. Louise is devastated when she learns of her husband’s death and runs upstairs to be alone. Louise sits down and ponders about life while looking out the window and hears a vendor yelling what he is selling. Still crying, she looks into the distance wondering what’s next. She is nervous for her life ahead and doesn’t know what she is going to do without her husband. She starts to think about what life is going to be like without having anyone telling her what to do, when to do it, or how to do it. She starts to feel warm inside knowing she is finally free. Louise knows she will become overcome with emotions when she is forced to see Brently’s body. She imagines the years