Outline for Point-by-Point Comparison-Contrast Essay About Women andTheir Roles in “The Story of an Hour” and “The Necklace”Actual title: Living the reality: Happiness in the Acceptance of Roles
... was simple, without money to dress well, but she was unhappy as if she had gone through bankruptcy, for women have neither rank nor race. In place of high birth or important family connections, they can rely only on their beauty, their grace, and their charm.” (5) The main reason of Mathilde’s depression is her humble family and her marriage with a minor clerk in the field of education, which condemns her to certain roles that she cannot accept. Mathilde’s lack of adjustment to her humble reality makes her reject her roles as a clerk’s wife, and daydream all day about living as a rich person, a life that does not belong to her. De Maupassant wrote, “When she sat down to dinner at her round little table covered with a cloth that had not been washed for three days, in front of her husband who opened the kettle while declaring ecstatically, ‘ah good old boiled beef! I don’t know anything better’…” Mathilde’s dissatisfaction and rejection of her roles can be seen clearly because she have not washed the table cover for a long time, and she is humiliated with the apartment she lives in and the old boiled beef that her husband loves so much. Through these dialogues or quotes it is clear that both women have certain roles that strain them, and almost all of them are caused by marriage or societal structure. These roles many times prevent women’s enjoyment of life, and hatred towards their husbands. The symbols revealed in both stories have close relationship with the life that Louise and Matilde dream of, and their maladjustment and dissatisfaction of their current lives full of roles to accomplish. After the assurance of her husband’s death, Louise starts to realize that she is free of the roles of being a housewife and from the dominance of her husband. The life that awaits her can be symbolized by one object and a season of the year. The symbols that Chopin uses are “There stood, facing the open window…” (295) and “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air…” (295) The open window symbolizes that Louise is seeing her most desired dream come true, and she realizes that she is going to live it without any governance or obligations, free, living for herself. The symbolism in relation to the spring season is the new life that Louise is going to enjoy, full of beauty and hope. In “The Necklace”, Maupassant wrote, “Suddenly she found a superb diamond necklace in a black satin box, and her heart throbbed with desire for it” (8) The author uses the diamond necklace to symbolize the life that Mathilde desires, free from the roles of a low class cleric lifestyle and her marriage. Another symbol is the necklace and its case. The necklace is a medium price necklace with a case of an expensive jewel, which symbolizes Mathilde in the party or event that she attends to. Mathilde belongs to a family of clerks and she attends to the party as a rich lady, which makes a very significant representation of the real price of the necklace in relation to its case. In the last part of the story Maupassant also employs the necklace as a symbol, “What would life have been like if she had not lost that necklace?” (11) Maupassant uses the necklace as an image of Mathilde’s past life as a cleric housewife because after she worked hard to pay the price of losing the jewel, she understands that she did not appreciate the things she had in the past, so the jewel becomes a symbol of her lost past life, which was a good life. Both women desire a life that does not belong to them because of their unhappiness with their current lives. Through these symbols, it is visible that women that are dissatisfied with their marriage and the roles that are given to them by society, wish for an unrealistic life, instead of accepting their roles and live happily. The resolution of the plot in both stories ends up with suffering and pain, but with a more realistic view of the destiny of each individual. In “The Story of an Hour”, when Louise finds out that her husban...