Summary:
Two short stories, Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour" and Kay Boyle's "Astronomer's Wife," both depict women in despondent marriages who are held back by their husbands and who desire to be free from them. The two women each find their freedom in different ways. In "Astronomer's Wife," Mrs. Ames achieves her freedom by running away with another man to a new start. In "Story of an Hour," Mrs. Mallard achieves her freedom through her death, after her initial sense of freedom is dashed by the discovery that her husband didn't die after all.
Compare and Contrast
Story of an Hour and Astronomer's Wife
It is a very difficult task for women to live a content life while in a despondent marriage. Though it has been done, it is simply no easy task. In the short stories "Story of an hour", and "Astronomers Wife" Kate Chopin and Kay Boyle both suggests to their readers that a woman needs a man to connect with her physically to be happy. The two stories both share the thesis that women are being held back by their husbands and there is plenty of evidence to prove this. With Chopin's story taking place in the 50's, and Boyle's story taking place at the turn of the century, they encounter parallel situations with a time difference of almost 50 years.
If we compare the wives in the two.....
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