Comparing and contrasting the protagonist
The role of women in modern society is not similar to the one played by the women of the mid-twentieth century. Women have advanced since then and have now brought about a society that embraces equality. Both the authors of “the sorrowful woman” and “Story of an Hour” present their protagonists as women who are introverted and forced to play roles they did not like at all. They were quite submissive to their respective husbands and carried on with life as housewives. This essay seeks to explain that in order to have a successful marriage, the husband and wife should work together as a single unit in which the husband and wife play their respective roles without any form of imprisonment.
There is imprisonment of the women in their marriages. The protagonists in the two stories are both presented as women who are imprisoned in their marriages and constrained in the roles they play as women. Both the two women have turned out to be tired and sorrowful or “sick”. More so, the two protagonists are similar in a way that they both die at the end of the story. They both turn to nature and isolation to get a solution to their troubles. Even if marriage is portrayed differently in the two stories, it is seen as a restraint to the protagonists in both stories. This is not just shown in the story’s events but it is as well portrayed in the manner each of the two protagonists in the respective stories turns out to be a dynamic character.
There are varied attitudes towards the family or marriage life in the women. In “The story of an hour” Kate Chopin presents the protagonist who moves from the state of abandonment to a state of fresh freedom upon hearing the news of her husband’s death. She kept on whispering “Free! Body and soul free!” She was filled with happiness since she did not have to live for anyone by for herself now. “She carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of victory” (Chopin 4). This is in a way contrary to what Gail Godwin presents in the story “A sorrowful woman”. Here, the protagonist abruptly turns out to be weighed down by guilt at her abrupt hatred of her role as a mother and a wife. She did not want to be near her husband and child and she spend most of her time resting in her big chair “gazing into the snow-ridden” branches putting on her slacks and a sweater. She is confronted with the feeling of being abandoned and bitterness towards the family (Anon 1).
Conclusion
In a successful marriage, the husband and wife are supposed to work together to remain as a single unit. It is quite clear in the two stories: “The story of an hour” and “A sorrowful woman” that there is no working together in each of the two families as a single unit. The two wives tend to have sunk deep in their own grieve and sadness to a point that there could be no means to salvage the situation. They had sunk deep to a level that whatever the efforts they could make, they wouldn’t ever want to realize what once may have been a very wonderful marriage.
References
Anon. “A sorrowful woman Versus Story of an hour”. Mega Essays, 2010. Web.
Chopin, Kate. The Story of an Hour. Perfection Learning, 2000.