Story of an hour, Lady with the pet dog - Essay Example

Reaction to “The Story of an Hour” Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” has an interesting twist at the end which I enjoyed. For some reason, twists in stories seem to make them more interesting and worth while. Initially the reader can see that Mrs. Mallard was very sad and distraught at her husband’s death. However, when she says that she is now “free” and not tied down to someone else, I definitely felt like she didn’t care for her husband very much. She actually seems quite excited that he is supposedly gone because she now feels she can have her life to herself.

I feel that Chopin does a very effective job with using descriptive words and putting the reader in the scene with the characters. She also allows the reader to see Mrs. Mallard’s emotions very well. At first she is sad and nearly sobbing and compares her to “as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.” The reader then sees that she is dumbfounded and unable to think. Then after looking out the window at the sky she begins to feel free. As a reader, it was interesting to see her emotions very clearly and speculate how she really views her husband and their marriage.

Perhaps in this story the author is conveying how she views marriage in general, or at least certain marriages. Chopin may view herself as someone who feels more free on her own and not “tied down” with what she sees as the burdens of marriage. It would be interesting to read more of her stories and find out if this is a theme that comes up often in her writing. The ending of the story is particularly interesting. Mrs. Mallard is obviously very shocked that her husband is still alive. Perhaps it was just plain shock that killed her or the fact that she felt shocked and then trapped and stressed out again.

I am not sure what is meant by the last line that says “she had died of heart disease – of joy that kills.” Maybe it means that if she was still grieving instead of joyful she would have been able to endure seeing her husband again. Maybe the fact that she went from feeling joyful to being shocked and feeling trapped again is what caused her heart to fail. Reaction to “The Lady with the Pet Dog” Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Pet Dog” is a story of a forbidden love. The story left me wondering what will happen next.

I felt that they would eventually leave their spouses and marry each other because it really seemed like they were attached to each other. I also thought that if they got married, it would be very likely that Dmitri would eventually get bored with her and cheat on her with someone else. To me, Dmitri seems like a person who is only happy when he is cheating on someone and is happy because he has a secret life that nobody knows about. Were he to divorce and marry Anna, he would likely get the same feelings of boredom from being in a marriage after a while.

He says that he loves her more than anyone now, but based on his past behavior, that love could easily fade and he would begin to feel the excitement of pursuing another forbidden love again. I think that there could be a small chance that Dmitri could change and only be with Anna, but I feel like that is unlikely. As it says in the story, women like Dmitri because they think he is something that he’s not. Dmitri does not give enough of himself in a relationship and feels that women are the inferior gender.

Yet the women who become attracted to him don’t realize that he doesn’t truly love them. This is because he is very charming and makes them feel special, even though for him a lot of making the women he is with feel special is probably just to get them into bed. I feel like Anna is kind of in the same boat as Dmitri. She doesn’t like her marriage and she probably went away hoping to either have some time to herself or find someone else to love. She probably wasn’t actively looking for someone else like Dmitri is, but when the opportunity came along for love she took it.

She is more remorseful of their affair than Dmitri and would probably have never sought him out again had Dmitri not came to find her. It seems to me that this story is mainly about how Anna and Dmitri feel like they are trapped in their current lives and want to get out. They both feel like their real lives are dull and pointless but when they are together in their secret lives everything seems better and more exciting.