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Relationships In 'The Story Of An Hour, And' Hills Like White Elephants?

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Relationships are complicated, but can you imagine what it would have been like back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s? Women were still expected to live in the stereotypical role where men were in charge. Men still have a lot of power, but women are becoming more and more independent. However, it is interesting to differentiate how a woman author and a man author portray relationships. In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” there are different relationship dynamics portrayed. The relationship in “Hills Like White Elephants” portrays a young couple dealing with the issue of abortion with a lot of tension. In “The Story of an Hour,” Chopin portrays the relationship between an older couple, and the wife …show more content…

The relationship was not necessarily abusive; however, it seems as though there is some sort of strain. Perhaps, Brently keeps Louise tied down or he thinks of her a stereotypical woman. Everyone seems to believe that Louise is too fragile because of her hear. Because Louise has heart trouble, her sister, Josephine, has to break the news to her that Brently has seemed to have died from a railroad accident. Either way, Louise knows that she should be upset. At first, she does start crying, but after having some time to herself, she begins to whisper “Free!” (Chopin 426). Louise understands that she has this new-found freedom from the oppression of Brently, and that is why she seems both happy and upset. Even though he loved her, he still oppressed her. This leads to the conclusion that even though Brently was kind with his “tender hands” (Chopin 426) he still had the ability to oppress his wife even if he did not mean to. In the end, Brently is miraculously not dead and returns. However, upon the sight of him, Louise has a heart attack. It can be interpreted that this heart attack was out of

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