Jonathan Peel JLS 2016 Kate Chopin 19 th Century American From Southern USA lived in Alabama A very Conservative area with a social code based on race and gender Feminist writer Female characters often explore ideas which would offend polite society race marriage sexuality promiscui ID: 705134
Download Presentation The PPT/PDF document "Monday, 14 March 2016 The Story of an ho..." is the property of its rightful owner. Permission is granted to download and print the materials on this web site for personal, non-commercial use only, and to display it on your personal computer provided you do not modify the materials and that you retain all copyright notices contained in the materials. By downloading content from our website, you accept the terms of this agreement.
Slide1
Monday, 14 March 2016
The Story of an hour
Jonathan Peel JLS 2016Slide2
Kate Chopin
19th
Century American
From Southern USA, lived in Alabama. A very Conservative area with a social code based on race and gender
Feminist writerFemale characters often explore ideas which would offend polite society: race, marriage, sexuality, promiscuityWas not accepted by society due to the offensive subject matter of her work.
Jonathan Peel JLS 2016Slide3
Genre of Short Story
CondensedNo back story
No room to project forward
High impact
Especially good for conveying irony – Thomas Hardy and Roald Dahl for exampleJonathan Peel JLS 2016Slide4
A SCASI approach : SETTING
Time when, time era, place, natureNo time of day is specified. The action takes around half a day at most. Intense
The piece is set contemporaneously, somewhere around the turn of the 20
th
Century. What implications does this have for the gender politics of the writing?Most of the story takes place in her room…
Jonathan Peel JLS 2016Slide5
In her room…
She seeks privacy and solitudeThe room is not described but the “comfortable armchair” is. She will sit here to wait for the epiphany- why does Chopin stress its comfort?
The window is open. What might this symbolise?
Consider what she sees through it (nature)
Jonathan Peel JLS 2016Slide6
Through the window
Windows are often symbols of the boundary between an old and a new life: “liminality”.
What she sees
What this might symbolise
Trees… all aquiver with new Spring life
The notes of a distant song… reached her faintly
Countless sparrows
Patches of blue sky
The sounds,
the scents, the colour that filled the air
Jonathan Peel JLS 2016Slide7
Character
Focus is Mrs MallardLooking for description in
early
sections of the tale:
Quotation
Effect
Heart trouble
ambiguous: implying both health and emotion
She wept at once:
Emotional
and passionate
Storm of grief
Went away to her room alone
Facing the open window… pressed down by a physical exhaustion…
Jonathan Peel JLS 2016Slide8
Development
The open window is the clue.What does she realise that the death of her husband will allow?
She sobs continuously – what might this suggest?
Why has she a “dull stare” prior to her epiphany?
Jonathan Peel JLS 2016Slide9
Epiphany: “Free, free, free”
Find as many concepts which connote freedom as you can.
Once she recognises her potential freedom, how does Chopin show it taking over her entire being, in paragraphs 10&11?
What is the significance of her being described as a “goddess of Victory”?
What is the irony of the final sentence? What has she died of?Jonathan Peel JLS 2016Slide10
Action
Not much happens: Mrs Mallard takes to her room and comes out again. She dies.Consider the description of the realisation of freedom.
Can you find examples of the sensation seeming to have a sense of physical movement in paragraphs 9-12?
Jonathan Peel JLS 2016Slide11
Style:
Chopin writes with a range of emotive hyperbole, especially of adjective and of verb choice.
Short paragraphs move the story forward to its conclusion
Sentences are short and full of power due to the heightened language
What is the significance of the few moment s of direct speech?Poetic diction is evident inn this heightened language and also in moments of alliteration and of assonance – “revealed-concealing”, “composedly carrying”…Se if you can find moments of antithesis and of repetition (including
tricolon
)
Jonathan Peel JLS 2016Slide12
IDEAS:
FREEDOM: from the constraints of marriage.
Mrs Mallard loves her husband – note she will weep when she sees the “kind, tender hands” – he is not being held up as a figure of entrapment.
The love is not consistent - “often she had not”
She is free from the societal constraints of marriage, not freed from a brutal or unkind husband.Chopin equates this freedom with the “elixir of life”. Why?At the end of the tale, the joy of the freedom kills Mrs Mallard. What point may Chopin be making here?
Jonathan Peel JLS 2016