Introduction
Modernism was born out of the instability caused by World War I. People began to question the foundations of authority, as well as their social and cultural traditions. This unease is brought not only by the war, but also the increasing developments in politics, economics and science (Wrenn, 2010), liberating many traditions and perspectives. It is marred by “the struggle for knowledgesenselessness and alienation” (Wrenn, 2010). Literature was not immune to these changes, thus the modernist literary movement emerged. Here we analyze Chopin’s The Story of the Hour and Hemingway’s The Cat in the Rain to look at the different gender issues in their times.
The Story of an Hour
The Story of An Hour can literally present the immediacy of the events that took place within the time Mrs. Mallard was informed of her husband’s death, her subsequent heart attack from the “joy” of freedom, and the come back of her husband at the end.
Chopin’s The Story of An Hour plays with the themes of freedom, death, and marriage in the 19th Century. The story starts with Josephine, Mrs. Mallard’s sister, telling her that her that Mrs. Mallard is dead. It is evident that the characters treat her very gently due to her fragile condition. We then see Mrs. Mallard crying in earnest for her husband’s supposed death. However, as her lamentation progresses, we see that it culminates from powerlessness to a sense of freedom.
“There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature.” (para 14)
She then whispers “Free! Body and soul free!” (para. 16). We notice the transformation of her name from Mrs. Mallard to Louise, as the death of her husband signals her social freedom from the confines of her traditional marriage to her (re)claiming her identity.
The Cat in the Rain Themes
The Rain: Isolation, Emptiness
The story opens with two American couples staying in an Italian hotel room facing the garden and the war monument. “It was raining”, according to the author, as the girl looks out of the empty square and sees a cat seeking refuge under the table. We feel the isolation of the couple, repeatedly reinforced by unknown people that passes by, the sombre atmosphere given by the rain, as well as the empty square (para. 10).
The Cat: Desires
We can draw parallelism with the cat in the rain, and the American wife. The wife, who is projecting herself in the cat, desires to rescue it from the rain. As the story progress, we see the wife got up and went out of the room to retrieve the cat huddled from one of the “dripping green tables”. As she travels down, the readers are prompted with the wife’s lamentation of the hotel-keeper, and all the things that the wife like about him his stability, protection that he provides, and her feeling of “self-importance” when she encounters him. Here, we see a brief reflection to the woman’s desire, and her evident dissatisfaction with her marriage. This becomes clearer at the end of the story as she complains to her husband. We see that she wants to have a home, as reflected in her desires for her own silver, candles, clothes, and cat. There is also a desire to feel as she desires to have long hair that she can touch, to feel the purr from the cat, and also the spring.
At the end of the story, we read that the wife got what she wants as the inn keeper gives her a big tortoiseshell cat. However, we are led to question if this is the same cat that she saw under the green tables, in which she refers to as ‘kitty” while Hemingway describes the car given to her as “big”. Of course, we cannot clearly know if what the wife really saw was a kitten or a big mature cat.
Women Movement and the Modernist Literary Movement
The women during the modern period were starting to enter the urban labor force in the factory (Gieseler, 2011). As they become financially capable, they also began to be independent from their husbands. This brought on tremendous changes for their lifestyle Both Chopin and Hemingway touched on these gender issues specifically concerning on the tension between the traditional and the liberal views of women. While Chopin takes on a progressive approach as she criticizes the traditional and constricting role of women in her time. Hemingway, on the other hand, problematizes the loss of these traditional roles, as his female protagonist laments desires for a home, the role of motherhood and womanhood. Both female protagonists face the similar constricting roles, albeit in different nature. In his work, the woman, who is living a very modern lifestyle with her husband (they seem to be travelling), was unsure of her role, of what she desires, while Chopin’s Louise was constricted by norms and illness to get what she desires.
The use of the third person limited point of view simultaneous reveals and hides many aspects of the stories to the readers. Readers are often treated with straightforward and sparse narrative that have largely implicit meanings, thus they are left to provide their own interpretation and conclusion. It encourages the readers to look beyond the text, and deliberate on the details of his characters, themes and its complexities.
References
Chopin, Kate (1984). The Story of an Hour. Retrieved from: < http://wps.ablongman.com/wps/media/objects/11566/11843712/ch02/2.2.The_Story_of_an_Hour.pdf>
Gieseler, Adriana Luisa (2011). “The American Wife in the Rain: A Reading of Hemingway’s ‘Cat in the Rain.’” Univerdisade Federal Do Rio Grande Do Sul, Retrieved from: <http://www.lume.ufrgs.br/bitstream/handle/10183/31988/000784898.pdf>
Hemingway, Ernest (1925). “Cat in the Rain.” In Our Time. New York: Boni & Liverwright.
Wrenn, Heike (2010). “The Woman in Modernism.” English Literary File 2. Retrieved from:. < https://www.uscupstate.edu/uploadedFiles/academics/arts_sciences/Language_and_Literature/ELFVol2wrenn.pdf>
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