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An Hour And The Bayou

“The Story Of An Hour” and “Beyond The Bayou” by Kate Chopin are both different from each other, but both are about a woman and they are the main characters in the story. The story of an hour is about a woman named Mrs. Mallard with heart disease. For some reason the writer showed us that her husband died in the beginning of the story to build a connecting with readers and the main character’s health situation. Since she was diagnosed with the heart disease, a lot of things were going around in her mind. When she locked herself in her room, she felt like something was talking to her. “She said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free!””.(pg: 47). That shows she finally got her freedom and it tells us what kind of relationship she had with her husband. I tried to compare this story with one of the stories I’ve read in my other class called “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I can find a similarity between these two stories. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the main character used to talk to the wall and the writer mentioned that she saw something on the wall, like Mrs. Mallard was talking to herself. In the other hand “Beyond The Bayou” is about an independent woman, who works as hard as a man. Her name was Jacqueline but she was known as La Folle. She used to work hard every day. She made a friendship with the son of the owner of Bellissime named Cheri. He used to come to her all the time and tell her everything. I can compare this story to one of the story we’ve read in this class “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. The main character or the mother used to work like La Folle all the time. She was a strong woman too. When I was comparing the two characters from “The Story Of An Hour” and “Beyond The Bayou”, I couldn’t find any similarity between two of them. Mrs. Mallard is kind of quiet person and La Folle is always friendly and outgoing.

The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin and Beyond The Bayou by Kate Chopin

There are various similarities and differences between “The Story of an hour” and “Beyond The Bayou” in regards to feminism. Chopin depicts the struggles of female characters by characterizing them as being fragile. In The Story of an Hour Mrs. Mallard has a heart trouble and suddenly receives the horrifying news that her husband has been killed in an accident. Mrs. Mallard does not have a normal reaction. The fact that Mrs. Mallard has heart trouble it made her seem very weak. Why couldn’t it be vice versa with her husband. I felt that is was characterizing females as complicated. On page 47 it states ” She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will”, my educational guess is that Mrs. Mallard is approaching her death and some spirt has came for her. The news  about her husbands death affected her not at the moment but afterwards. In Beyond The Bayou the author characterized women of being equal to men. On page 50 it states ” She dwelt alone in her solitary cabin, for the rest of the quarters had long since been removed beyond her sight and knowledge. She had more physical strength than most men” this depicts the character as a strong independent women.                                                   In The story of an hour Mrs. Mallard does change but not voluntarily it seems that something has gotten into her and took control of her body and soul. The settings are very different from one another. The Story of the hour setting takes place in a home where a women finds out devastating news about what had occurred to her husband and she goes running to a room where she passes her last few moments alive. In Beyond The Bayou the setting takes place in a remote area where the people living on it work on it daily.

Beyond the Bayou

I chose to compare Rip Van Winkle’s wife and Jacqueline, or La Folle. Both of these female characters are polar opposites. Irving doesn’t give Rip’s wife a thorough introduction to her character. All we know is that she is always yelling at Rip on what to do and what he’s doing wrong. In Chopin’s story of Beyond the Bayou, La Folle is given to us in details from what she looks like and how she gotten her nickname. La Folle has more power to change the story the in whatever way she would have wanted, and she also conquered her fear of crossing the bayou. In Rip Van Winkle, Rip’s wife never had the chance to say much throughout the story, so she couldn’t have much influence on how the ending would end.

The Bride Comes To Yellow Sky

In “The Bride Comes To Yellow Sky” by Stephen Crane, the narrator’s attitude toward Jack Potter is interesting. Jack Potter is the marshal of his town and is arriving back after getting married in San Antonio. He’s afraid of what the people of his town will say because he got married and didn’t tell anyone about it. He feels as though he had to run the idea by them first because of the tradition they’ve been keeping. I think it’s kind of silly for him to not marry the woman he loves before telling the whole town about it and feeling bad about not doing so as well. The narrator also thinks its silly. When telling reasons why Potter feels guilty the narrator says “or of an unspoken form which does not control men in these matters, that he felt he was heinous. He had committed an extraordinary crime”. I feel as though the narrator was amused by how Potter was over reacting and was poking fun at Potter. Its also like the narrator feels a little sympathetic towards Potter at the same time by the way it makes you also hope that he ends up okay.

The Small Towns People ( Rip Van Winkle and The Bride Comes To Yellow Shy)

When it comes to both the stories Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving and The Bride Comes To Yellow Sky by Stephen Crane they both share a similar yet different way of depicting the social dynamic of a small town. When it comes to the story Rip Van Winkle the people of the town do fit the way that people would normally think a small town would be. In the reading everyone knows each other and especially know who is Rip Van Winkle. Rip was known as the man that “would never even refuse to assist a neighbor”. When you think of small town peoples you think that everyone helps one another and is a peaceful town. So Irving took the more classic road when it came to describing the way the people of the town were. Especially with Rip.

When it came to The Bride Comes To Yellow Sky, Crane went in a different direction. He did not make the people of the town be as friendly with each other than how Irving did. In the story the drummer cried out “Scratchy Wilson’s drunk and has turned loose with both hands” meaning the old man that was in a gang once was so drunk that he is out and about to firing his revolver around town. Now when it came to this specific part of the story the towns people explained to the drummer that this was a normal thing that would happen in their small town and that when it did they would just close the door and lock themselves in because they knew that Wilson was a dangerous man when he was drunk. Now the drummer although he was scared that Wilson was outside drunk with his revolvers he saw that the people were not scared at all. When It comes to a small towns, people don’t normally think that gun fights would be a regular thing to happen. So in the end Crane did not go for a typical depiction of a small town.

I think that the only similarities that both stories do share would be that both people of the town counted on someone to help them. In the story Rip Van Winkle the people of the town would count on Rip to help them with anything that they needed help with. And the people in the small town the story The Bride Comes To Yellow Sky would normally count on Jack Potter to help them when it came to Scratchy Wilson.