Wares  noun  \Ëwer\
a :Â manufactured articles, products of art or craft, or farm produce :Â goods âoften used in combination <tinware
b :Â an article of merchandise
In the street below a peddler was crying his wares.
The Story of An Hour paragraph 5
Thinking a peddler is a man peddling a boat him screaming his ‘wares’ to me meant that he was screaming at people to beware. Turns out a peddler is a merchant and he was letting people know what merchandise he has.
Tumultuously – Adjective – loud, excited, and emotional. via Merriam-Webster
Encountered in the short story âThe Story of an Hourâ by Kate Chopin, paragraph ten, sentence one.
“Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will–as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free!””
The word helps describe how she couldn’t hold her true feelings about her husband any more and it figuratively escaped from within her.
Peddler noun \Ëped-lÉr\
a : one who offers merchandise (as fresh produce) for sale along the street or from door to door
In the street below a peddler was crying his wares.
The Story of An Hour paragraph 5
I thought a peddler had something to do with a boat. I realized it meant a merchant which helped me understand the setting better. She [Louise] wasn’t overlooking a canal (like in Venice, Italy) and there wasn’t a man on a gondola peddling.
Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour” (1894) is about the reaction of a wife who is informed of a train accident that her husband supposedly died from. Mrs. Mallard, the protagonist of the story is informed of the news and like any typical wife would do, she burst into tears. The question is, is she crying in sorrow or crying in joy. It was revealed on the second page that she “loved him sometimes. Often she had not” which implies that she really didn’t love him at all. Mrs. Mallard appears to be in a different world at this point, staring blankly into the blue sky thinking about how things would be without him. Blood was warming her up as she recited “free, free, free!” In other words, she was really relieved the incident happened and knowing that her husband is gone, she is able to break free from the constraints her husband placed on her. However in the end, that vision of freedom was short lived. Upon the arrival of Mr.Mallard who was clueless of the accident, Mrs. Mallard’s joy fired back at her causing her to die from a heart attack which was “the joy that kills”.
Susan Glaspell’s, “A Jury of Her Peers” (1882), in a short summary is about an incident relating to the death of Mr. Wright and how Mrs. Wright can possibly be connected to it. Pretty much, Mrs. Wright wasn’t all that fond of her marriage. There was lots of evidence of a problem in their relationship. The investigators of the case, the Hales and the Peters were the ones who noticed signs of abuse and distress against Mrs. Wright. Based on the evidence found, it was concluded that  Mrs. Wright did in fact killed her husband.
Both stories were made in the same timeline and can be related to how things are handled in this timeline. To be honest, in both stories, I think anyone can understand why each wife would think of their husbands that way. If the relationship goes to the point where one spouse resents the other, I think anyone would feel that way. This is why both stories can be related to how things are handled now. Setting in both stories play an important role because it pretty much brings us, the reader into the story. From “The Story of an Hour”, we are brought into the scenery and we can imagine how things look like. From “A Jury of Her Peers”, we are brought into the crime scene and we can picture how things appeared. In the end, I guess these examples are the other end results of an unhealthy relationship.
In âThe Story of an Hour,â when Mrs. Mallard hears the tragic news of her husband getting âkilledâ in the railroad disaster, she is devastated (p.2). She realizes that she is a widow and her husband is no longer with her. She also sees that she has âno one to live for during the coming years and that she would live for herselfâ (p.10). Mrs. Mallard was living for her husband. Every moment of her life was a reflection of Mr. Mallard because she put her hope, trust, faith, and life in Mr. Mallard. And when I state âreflection,â I mean Mrs. Mallard represented her husband. When a man marries a woman, their soul, mind, and body are glued together, representing them as one person. So, when she heard that husband passed away, it was as if her life crumbled apart. She no longer had no reason to live when the person that was her everything or her life was dead. âThere would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature,â meaning that there would be no motivation for Mrs. Mallard to cook, eat, or etc. when all those things were being done for her husband (p.10). So, I believe this led her to having heart problems. Also, she could have mourned for her husband and make the decision to continue living her life. However, Mrs. Mallard had her identity as a wife to Mr. Mallard. When his death came, she lost her identity, making her lose her will to live, which ultimately led her to dying of âheart diseaseâ (p.20).
In âA Jury of Her Peers,â Mrs. Wright (Minnie Foster) the once âlively choirgirl that sang in the choir and wore pretty clothes,â was no longer lively (Page 268, p.1). Mrs. Wright marriage to her husband made her bound or chained to not doing the things she loved to do, which was singing. Although, Mr. Wright was seen as a âgood man in townâ (Page 274 p.6), âhe was a hard manâ (Page 274 p.8). âJust to spend the time of day with him was like a raw wind that got to the boneâ (Page 274 p.8). Also, their home ânever seemed a very cheerful placeâ (Page 265 p.7). Therefore, Mrs. Wright was living under constant anxiety. Her ânervousnessâ was exhibited by the strange way of her sewing her quilt (Page 272) and her untidy kitchen (Page 266). Also, Mrs. Wright probably was living in fear of what her husband was going to do or say to her, so she lived in silence, except for her pet bird that sang to her (Page 277 p.8). However, Mr. Wright silenced the bird by killing it. After the birdâs death, I think Mrs. Wright had enough of being silent and wanted to be free. So, Mrs. Wright killed her husband in order to gain freedom from the 20 years of being oppressed by her husband.
In Jury of Her Peers, the conversations of Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters provide us with a picture of Mrs. Wright in her younger years. We see a beautiful young women with a wonderful voice. Â That women is in stark contrast to the women Mr. Hale walked in on that morning, a women living with worn out clothing, in a lonesome house, with no children, and once again, no pets. After all those years, when she finally had something that gave her joy, only to see her husband take that away from her as well, it is very easy to validate her actions. In a way, her husband took her life before she took his.
The Story of An Hour begins with a frail woman receiving terrible news. Â As the story progresses we see what this news meant to her, a chance to be free, a chance to live. After living for someone she didn’t love for so long, and to be given another chance at freedom, I would say her thoughts toward her “late” husband are completely acceptable.
Both stories are set in the same time period, a time when women were seen as housekeepers, and are there to serve their husbands, and raise children. I think the attorney saying  “But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?” is a great example of the general attitude toward women at the time. Although in today’s day and age the attitude toward women has changed, both stories are still very relevant. There are many people trapped in loveless and abusive relationships, and it would be easy enough to adapt the story to present day.
Now that you have had the opportunity to read Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” and to discuss them with classmates via our course blog, your homework is to think further about them in your own blog post. This post should follow our course’s blogging guidelines, and should draw on one or two quotations as the main focus of your post to convey an argument about some aspect of the texts. The post can touch on points that you or others made in the discussion, provided you cite them AND that you take any of those ideas further. Your goal is to provide analysis of the specific passage or passages you have chosen to focus on, and to show how it exemplifies a larger argument about the text or texts.
This is going to be the format for our homework blog posts for the next few weeks, so you will begin developing these skills here.
Some things you might want to think about:
Remember to categorize your post with Week 1, and to use any tags you think are relevant (except Homework Assignment, which I’m using for these weekly instruction posts)–or add your own tags. If you neglect to categorize your post, I will not find it and will not be able to count it.
These posts will guide our discussion on Wednesday. Please post them by the end of Tuesday night so we have the chance to read them and come to class prepared.
Aquiver (adjective): shaking or trembling because of strong emotion; quivering (Merriam-Webster)
Found on Paragraph 5 of âThe Story of an Hourâ–>âShe could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life.â
I believe the word in this quote means that the trees that Mrs. Mallard was watching from her bedroom window were shaking (excited) to blossom with new leaves.
âThe Story of an Hourâ by Kate Chopin is a great story to discuss for many reasons. Itâs especially convenient because it packs so much into just two pages. After you read âThe Elements of Fictionâ and âThe Story of an Hour,â re-read âThe Story of an Hourâ with pen or pencil in hand. Mark it up by identifying different elements of fiction you find in it, as well as anything else that stands out to you. When you take notes on a reading, what techniques do you use? Underlining, circling, bracketing, writing summaries, questions, observations, drawing arrows connecting similar ideas, defining words you didnât know, among other techniques are great ways to get into a text. Try a combination of these techniques.
For our discussion, consider how we as readers think about Mrs. Mallard and the death of Mr. Mallard in comparison to how we think about Mrs. Wright and the death of Mr. Wright. Use the elements of fiction to support your ideas, and be specific with examples from the readings (including quotations is a great way to support your claims).
Since comments should be roughly 150-250 words, you might find that you can’t say everything you want to say. There are many of us to contribute ideas, so no one commenter needs to say everything. That said, come back to contribute more by engaging in a discussion with your classmates. You can either respond to my post by adding a comment, or you can reply to someone who has left a comment. Reading other classmates’ ideas can help shape your ideas, so be sure to read carefully to best engage in the discussion. We might not have the same ideas, but we can learn from each other and expand our understanding of these texts through our discussion.
If you have questions about the texts, feel free to ask those, too. When I stated that comments need to be 150-250 words, that doesn’t mean you can’t also write additional shorter comments, especially if they are questions. And everyone should feel free to answer questions as well–that will contribute to our discussion as well.
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