Chopin and Orwell: Raw and Real in Exploring Human Experience - Research Paper Example

Prof’s Kate Chopin and George Orwell: Raw and Real in Exploring Human Experience Kate Chopin wrote stories of female topics exploring both oppression and freedom in ways that developed concepts of her own experiences. George Orwell also reflected his own experiences in his work, looking at the world through both cruelty and kindness. Both of these writers approach their short stories with the intention of expressing something fundamental about the social construction of their time. Through the use of description and metaphor, Orwell and Chopin define human social norms in ways that shed light on the pressure that is experienced in the act of conforming to what is expected. In the wake of having received extremely harsh criticism for her novel The Awakening, Kate Chopin would never publish another piece of her writing. The story “The Storm “was not published until it was included in a book of her work titled The Complete Works of Kate Chopin in 1969 (Ward 89). The story uses this storm as a metaphor for quick passion, erupting in the middle of a thunderstorm and the electricity of the attraction compared to the crack of lightning storm. The descriptions of the storm intermingled description of passion even as the storm and when Chopin writes “with one hand she clasped his head, her lips lightly touching his way. The other hand stroked the sitting with his muscular shoulders. The growl of thunder was distant and passing” (Ward 93). Both Calixta and Alcee went back to their normal lives, acting as if nothing happened in the storm. At the end Chopin writes “so the storm passed and everyone was happy” (Ward 94). In “The Story of an Hour” Chopin writes about a very different experience that lasts for a short period of time. The hour that Chopin writes about also contains a certain amount of joy and a sense of freedom that was expressed through passion in “The Storm”. When Louise Mallard discovers that her husband has been killed she retreats to her room and experiences a sense of relief that is a surprise to the reader. Elements of nature as well as descriptions of the room both come together to describe a sense of prison and a sense of release. As spring begins to emerge outside her window she also begins to experience a sense of rebirth. At the same time, he the window is a symbol of the prison that shes been living in during her marriage (The Story of an Hour 3). When it is discovered that her husband still lives, she drops that her joy ended even as she should have felt joy for his safe return. As many authors do, Kate Chopin plucked experiences from her life in order to explore human nature. As well, she often focused on themes that were based on patriarchal social systems. In her short story about Louise Mallard, she reflected the experiences of her mother whose husband died and left her comfortably rich as she lived what couldve been described as ’happily ever after’. Chopin changes the story, of course, to reflect what would have happened had her father, her mothers husband, returned and not been dead after all. One might wonder if maybe she was in some way reinventing what happened in order to reflect something within her relationship with her mother. However, Emily Toth writes that the story of Chopin’s mother would actually have been too radical for the time period. Because of the deeply patriarchal society that existed in the 1890s, the idea that a woman lost her husband and was happy and able to survive that happiness might have been too radical and threatening (10). Kate Chopin lived in a time when women did not necessarily have long lives because of the influence childbirth and other maladies that would and those lives shortly. However, the women in her family had an extraordinary resilience; many of them living long after their husbands had died. Her own father was taken in a car accident, similarly to that of Mr. Mallard and his supposed death (Chopin 8). In her short story “The Story of an Hour” she is describing her own liberation from being sent away because her father sent her to boarding school at the age of five but after his death her mother brought her home to be raised in a family of strong women (Toth 10). It might be that she was describing what would have happened had her father not really died. Instead of his death, it might have been the death of the women in her family, she and her mother, a metaphor for the oppression they would have continued to feel in a house that was ruled by a man. The two stories written by George Orwell, “A Hanging” and “Shooting an Elephant” likely were influenced by the time he spent in Burma. Like Kate Chopins stories, the topic matter was not usual for the time period. When Orwell spent time in Burma there were more than 150 executions in one year. Witnessing this type of event would have been highly possible and might have been the basis for writing “A Hanging”. As well, the brutality that he writes about in “Shooting an Elephant” may also have come from his experiences. The details in both the story are what gives power to the writing. Orwell writes about the man who was hanged losing control of his bladder as he hears the death sentence. He is intentionally trying to evoke humanity as he describes the man walking towards his impending death. Orwell writes about the “bobbling date of the Indian who never straighten his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scout danced up and down seat printed themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who grouped in by each shoulder, he steps lightly aside to avoid a puddle” (Rodden and Rossi 64). The details of the way in which this man walks towards his hanging create a sense of the man and his human existence. The realism with which Orwell writes “Shooting an Elephant” brings the reader into an understanding of the pain that is experienced throughout the episode. What Orwell is expressing is his discussed with British imperialism in Burma, however, as he describes a man who is caught between the British Empire that he must serve and his dislike for the people in Burma who oppose him as he tries to do his job as a police officer. As hes expecting to kill an elephant is gone on a frenzy but who has calm down and is eating grass by the time the protagonists gets to him. Orwell writes “And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white mans Dominion in the East. Here I was, the white man with his gun standing in front of the unarmed native crowd – seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet” (Foster and Porter xix). Similar to the way in which Chopin and describes death as a way of separating from something painful and life, Orwell describes both the man in his essay “The Hanging” and the elephant in “Shooting an Elephant” with deep description. Although the death of the elephant represents a failure of British rule in Burma and the death of Mr. Mallard evokes the hope of freedom from patriarchal oppression, both stories use these elements as a way to describe failures in human relationships. The narrator of Orwells story of the elephant is just as trapped by social convention as Louise is within her marriage. Although the stories are unique and have very different plot lines, both Orwell and Chopin have developed a situation which reflects a larger social concept. Both imperialism and patriarchal social systems create oppressive atmosphere in which there are dominant and submissive portions of society. Through the use of creating metaphors for those oppressions, the writers created a sense of frustration because of the expectation that comes along with conforming to those norms. The writers he used a great deal of description to express moments in time in both “The Storm” and “The Hanging” as a way of discussing human frailty. Through developing these concepts of human existence, the writers are able to express production and metaphor the way in which oppressive social systems influence human life. Works Cited Chopin, Kate. The Story of an Hour: Short Story. Toronto, Ontario: HarperPerennial Classics, 2014. Print. Foster, Patricia, and Jeffrey L. Porter. Understanding the Essay. Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Press, 2012. Print. Rodden, John, and John Rossi. The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell. , 2012. Print. "The Story of an Hour" - Kate Chopins Voice against Patriarchy. München: GRIN Verlag, 2010. Print. Toth, Emily. Unveiling Kate Chopin. New York: Univeristy of Mississippi, 1999. Print. Ward, Candace. Great Short Stories by American Women. New York: Dover Publications, 1996. Print. Read More