Walter Mitty Theme

The nineteenth century oversaw women like Harriet Jacobs and Kate Chopin developing narratives which notably resisted the customary feminist roles in the home. Each of these narratives entails a female protagonist who is looking to escape and attain freedom. With many critics debating about their source of dissatisfaction, the final resort, women refusing to conform to the role of a devoted wife, provided authoritative and subversive texts to the advice literature that was popularized at the turn of the century.

A woman’s only mission, in the 19th and early 20th century, was to get married, take care of her husband and have babies. Often, marriage was nothing more than a practical bond, in other words, a woman didn’t always choose a husband because she was in love. In the short story “The storm” by Kate Chopin and “Lamb to the slaughter” by Roal Dahl a contrast is created between the two main characters concerning the view of love and marriage. The view on the connection between marriage and love differs between Calixta from “The Storm” and Mary from “Lamb to the Slaughter” but coincide when it comes to the conception of marriage.

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.

     Relationships seem to be the favorite subject of Kate Chopin’s stories. As Margaret Bauer suggests that Chopin is concerned with exploring the “dynamic interrelation between women and men, women and patriarchy, even women and women” (Bauer 146). In “The Story of an Hour” Chopin deals with the subject of marriage. She illustrates the influence of family alliance on individual freedom. According to Wohlpart,“The Story of an Hour” describes the journey of Mrs. Mallard against the Cult of True Womanhood as she slowly becomes aware of her own desires and thus of a feminine self that has long been suppressed”(Wohlpart 2). The Cult of True Womanhood in the XIX century included “purity” and “domesticity”. The former suggested that women must maintain their virtue. The latter – denied them their intellectual and professional capabilities (Papke 12). Being the victim of this Cult, Louise Mallard was a good example of a wife without “her own desires and feminine self”.

Thesis: In the short story, “A Couple of Hamburger’s”, their ongoing disagreements seem that of a couple who has been married for a long time when everything your significant other does bother you, whereas, in “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses” the problem seems much bigger because the husband admits to ogling at other women.

In this essay I am going to be assessing the character Curleys Wife from Steinbeck’s book Of Mice And Men. The book is set in the 1930s during the Great Depression it features two farm workers called George and Lennie. The travel around together in search of work sharing a dream of a place of their own, a small ranch where they can live and work for themselves. It tells the story of how violence may erupt to destroy those dreams. Curleys wife is a character in the book who from the brief encounters with her is presented in two ways. Firstly the dangerous, flirtatious character who isn’t trusted by the rest of the ranch workers but then later one we realize how she is just a victim

The Story of an Hour is short, yet, contains important examples of gender roles in marriage. They are important because they represent how women felt married in the 19th century due to male dominance that manifested throughout marriages all over the world. In The Story of an Hour, Mrs. Mallard is a wife that is, at first, seen as distraught, because of her husband’s death. She starts to cry and run to her room, to soon be lifted with the joy that she is now free. It is clear that she felt trapped in the marriage and is now happy that there is no one controlling her any longer. Mrs. Mallard is a prime example of women in marriages in the 19th century, and even some today. Unfortunately, they have to experience sexism from their husbands. Women are dominated by men in marriage and are expected to acquire the stereotypical gender roles.

Every marriage has there ups and downs. In fact, there are no such things as a perfect marriage. The subject of marriage and gender roles are usually mentioned in literary pieces that put the emphasis on mostly on the way the family is set up. The following comparative essay will put the emphasis to center on the two fictional stories; 'I'm going' by Bernard Tristan and 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty' by James Thurber. The researcher is able to relate to both of the stories on account of the certain dealings that he has had in marriage unions. These two literary pieces are the researcher's preferred choice to talk about the subject of gender roles and marriages. This following two sources of literature puts the emphasis on the marriage that is among Henri and Jeanne also as Mr. and Mrs. Mitty.

Paul Newman once said, “People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked” (74). There is no such thing as the perfect relationship, however, being involved in a healthy relationship is essential for a person to feel valued, safe, and happy. Unfortunately, in the situation of Kelly Sundberg’s personal essay “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” and Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of An Hour,” include extreme examples of unhealthy relationships. The essay “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” shares painful experiences of Sundberg’s physical and emotional abusive relationship with her husband Caleb, while “The Story of an Hour,” shares a rare reaction of a married woman, Louise Mallard, who explores her emotions cautiously when hearing about the death of her husband. Each woman faces their own prison created by their husbands. The two marriages represent the figurative meaning of doors being locked in a marriage. Both pieces of literature convey the theme of confinement by using the literary devices of foreshadowing, imagery, and conflict.

Women in history stood best known for a less ascendant sex in the mid-nineteen centuries. Since times have gone by women had fought for their equal rights and freedom. There had been many stereotypes, where the women were considered as a slave to the men’s because the women’s position was to be the homemakers and a mother to their children, while the men’s are out socializing with others. If they were not happy with the marriage, they cannot just walk out or complain because a women role is to endure all these pains without a word coming out of their mouths. Two out of the ordinary short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “The Story of An Hour,” mostly focused on a women’s dilemma that they faced near the 19th century. The two main characters in the short stories show some resemblances in some ways, but both characters portrayed them in different ways of how they dealt their sorrows in their marriages.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Sinclair Ross’s “The Painted Door” are both stories about women protagonists who feel emotionally isolated from their husbands, who both go by the name John. Ann in “The Painted the Door” and the wife whose name may or may not be Jane in “The Yellow Wallpaper” are women who deal with emotional isolation. Emotional isolation is a state of isolation where one may be in a relationship but still feel emotional separation. In these two stories, both women feel emotionally isolated from their husbands due to lack of communication. In both stories, lack of communication results from one individual failing to disclose their true feelings and instead he or she are beating around the bush, hoping the other party will know what they want. If both parties directly disclose their desires and feelings to one another, there would be a better understanding of each other which as a result would help save marriages. This paper will look at how both women lack communication, how they both their approach their emotional isolation differently, and how their failure to communicate to their husbands and their approach, results in the failure to save their marriage. “The Painted Door” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” are stories that show how both women protagonists are emotionally isolated due to their failure to communicate their feelings and desires to their husbands. Instead of direct communication to their husbands, the women find other

In Chopin’s short story, she demonstrates how men in the late ninetieth and early twentieth century treated their wives more as possessions than individuals, thus when the protagonist Mrs. Mallard learns her husband Brently Mallard just unexpectedly died, she feels “free, free, free!” (15). Since, Chopin published this short story in 1894; women often got married while they were quite young and typically to men much older. Likewise, divorce was never usually an option for unhappy marriages. Subsequently, Mrs. Mallard appears unhappy in her marriage, after learning about her husband’s death, she pictures how much better her life is going to be, “There would be no powerful will bending hers in that persistence with which men and women believe they have the right to impose a private will upon a

The story concerns the unhappy marriage, which appears to be a theme in many of Steinbeck’s short stories, and the psychological effects this has primarily on the wife, Elisa Allen. The central character, Elisa, is appealing to many readers and scholars alike, because of the depth of her persona. Elisa is introduced to us in a less than feminine fashion which can be seen as a hint at oppression of women in

       As the tale begins we immediately can sympathize with the repressive plight of the protagonist.  Her romantic imagination is obvious as she describes the "hereditary estate" (Gilman, Wallpaper 170) or the "haunted house" (170) as she would like it to be.  She tells us of her husband, John, who "scoffs" (170) at her romantic sentiments and is "practical to the extreme" (170).  However, in a time

The discussion of the Wife’s five husbands describes her evolving role as a woman and how she overcame the most ridiculous obstacles to maintain this idea or illusion of marriage. The Wife’s depiction of her marriages was that three were good and two were bad. The initial marriages were to older rich men where she kept up this idea of marriage in order to receive money, but was not faithful by