Summary of Magdalena and Balthasar: Story of a Sixteenth Century Marriage

First, numerous people especially women in the early 1900s fall into others’ expectations upon and before their marriage. In “A Pair of Silk Stockings” and “A Shameful Affair”, two of their main characters are women, and they both fall into societal expectations about them where they later lose their freedom. For example, in “A Pair of Silk Stocking”, Chopin targets the social expectation upon one’s marriage where she describes the usual mother’s responsibilities by saying “A dollar or two should be added to the price usually paid for Janie’s shoes, which would insure their lasting an appreciable time longer than they usually did” () As Chopin utilizes imagery, this infers an image of what Mrs. Sommers plans to do as a mother, who she carefully plan her money to buy new clothes for her children. Moreover, the word “insures” means to arrange compensation for damage that is done to the event, whereas the word “appreciable” means large enough to be noticed. Yet, both connotes a stable lasting which further reveal that one of the mother’s roles that is expected by the society is to know how use the money wisely for their children without falling in debt. Thus, the responsibilities of a mother have overloaded her where she later turn in self-indulgent. Likewise, Chopin not only portrays how women fall into others’ expectations upon their marriage yet they also fall into it before their marriage. In the short story “A Shameful Affair”, the author describes the primary character as Mildred Kraummer, who she falls in love with the one of the farmhands. While Mildred meets him fishing, they accidentally give a kiss where the author narrates “He kissed her lips… Shame

Alexandra dealt with criticism not only from other farmers but even from her own brother’s. Lou turned to his brother. "This is what comes of letting a woman meddle in business," he said bitterly. We ought to have taken things in our own hands years ago. But she liked to run things, and we humored her” (Cather). She only wanted the best for their family and to respect her father’s wishes but her own brother’s doubted her time and time again. Even though she did not have full support of her family she knew that she was going to stay on their land and that they would eventually begin to prosper again.

My initial observation of Dashkova is her ability to be extraordinary despite her difficult upbringing. Her intelligence was compelling to the Empress Catherine and the men that she had encountered during her traveling. Dashkova portrayed herself as a strong, versatile woman, who’s not only different from most of the women during the time period, but can also outperform her male counterparts in various tasks (e.g. surgery, debate, carpenting, etc.) (pg. 144). She surprised the readers at the first moment when she met Prince Dashkov, a Moscow man. She fell in love with him and got married at the age of 16. The proposal was informal and emotional unlike the traditional arrangement with its strict regulations. Just 5 years after, Prince Dashkov passed away, leaving Dashkova 2 children and his mountainous gambling debt. In the most hopeless scenario, Dashkova managed to raise her 2 children and provided her son a wonderful education while still remaining faithful to the Empress Catherine II. She declared, “My own poverty affected me not at all” (pg. 149).

In "The Story of an Hour" Chopin portrays marriage and the role and feelings of women in the 19th century as subordinate contributors to the husbands. The third word of the story is “Mrs.”, identifying the protagonist as a wife, defining her role and her life. She is also identified as weak and fragile.

Giovanni and Lusanna: Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence by Gene Brucker provides a unique look into the life of commoners in the 15th century. This book follows the 1455 court case surrounding the alleged marriage between Giovanni della Casa and Lusanna, the daughter of Maestro Benedetto di Girolamo. Throughout this trial testimonies, from witnesses with a vast array of socioeconomic backgrounds are presented. These were people whose voices would likely have never been heard if not for this case. This particular cross-section of people creates a very clear picture of the hierarchical system in place during the renaissance. Throughout this book, it becomes clear that each person had his or her place within society.

In the past many decades the definition of what a marriage means changed dramatically in some areas. For the author of both stories, Kate Chopin, she wanted the reader to get something out of the story. She likes to explore all types of themes in her stories such as, racism, the roles of women, and adultery. With these themes and messages she struggled to have most of her stories published. In many of her stories she passed along these messages through the manner of a marriage. In her short stories “The Story of an Hour” and “Desiree 's Baby” she showed just how different marriages could be as well as how similar they can be. Chopin portrays the lives of the main characters, Louise Mallard from “The Story of An Hour” and Desiree Aubigny

He explains why he was confident in fighting because his father was a revolutionary against the Bolsheviks and he was killed in one of their camps and since his mother was dead, he had to take care of himself as an orphan. Dimitri gives Anya his trust with this story and to show her a broken music box, unaware that was given to Anastasia by the Dowager Empress. Anya winds the box and begins to remember pieces of her past because of a nostalgic song, a memory was a royal family ball many years ago . In return, Anya gives Dimitri her most prized possession; a diamond that was sewn to her dress when she was found as a girl, and she uses the diamond to buy tickets to

The Burgermeister’s Daughter, written by Steven Ozment, illustrates the scandalous life of a young woman in sixteenth century Germany. Anna Buschler, the burgermeister’s daughter, lived a troublesome life in the German city of Schwabisch Hall, where she spent the majority of her life, while still moving from town to town. While the book surrounds the life of Anna Buschler, it also gives insight to many other historical topics going on in the time of her life, which feed into the reasoning of how Anna was treated. While the book at the beginning shows the mishaps and discourages Anna’s wrongdoings, we later find out many topics of discussion which led her

Helena is madly in love with Demetrius and would give her life for just one kind word from him.

Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” examine the complex relationship between a husband and wife. The two works take two different approaches to convey the same message: Marriage is not a fairytale, it requires sacrifice and unselfish behavior in order to work. Relationships are difficult to begin and harder to maintain. Mr. and Mrs. Mallard and Aylmer and Georgiana are two relationships that shatter the surreal perception of marriage and expose readers to the raw truth, marriage is not a fairytale.

In “The Story of an Hour”, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and “Trifles”, the authors all question the institution of marriage through the emerging theme of the oppression of women. In each of these works, women are shown trapped in confining marriages. While marriage is supposed to be seen as one of the most beautiful and perfect sanctities life has to offer, these authors portray it as more of a bittersweet agony that women are forced to endure. Chopin, Gilman, and Glaspell use a combination of symbolism and perspective in their literature to bring about this theme of female oppression. With this theme, the authors cause the readers to take a more feminist perspective and question the institution of marriage through the eye of the average housewife of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Sorg family had not known Stanislaus very well before Karolina married him and they heard he was a stone mason and did not have much education. Karolina shocked the Sorg family when she moved in with him and when they quietly married. Her family was hoping she would meet someone from the Grand Duke’s army or government with a better future. Theresia Sorg, Karolina’s mother had left Sulz, a small town outside of the capital of Karlsruhe and moved to the capital city of Karlsruhe, for that express purpose of marrying her daughter off to a wealthy man. After

Both of the tellers’ attitudes can easily be seen in the tales they share. The Merchant gives the negative view of marriage while the Wife’s encounter is triumphant for women. The Wife enjoys being married, which is evident by the number of husbands that she has had. The Merchant has been married two months and hates every part of it. The Merchant uses many stories of unhappily wed men and women to support his view. He shows that

Thesis: In Kate Chopin's "The Storm" and "The Story of an Hour," the wives seem to share the foul qualities of selfishness, unfaithfulness and confusion.

Little Tishka is a great role-model, as he is kind, industrious, and cunning. He, himself is the main theme of the book. Mr. Bettelheim said it best, “The question for the child is not ‘Do I want to be good?’, but, ‘Who do I want to be