The point of view is a perspective from which the author chooses a narrator to tell a story. The third-person narrators are usually observers but not characters in the story. Kate Chopin in “The Story of an Hour” uses the third-person omniscient narrative, which captures the reader and makes him sympathetic to Louise Mallard. The reader has a possibility to see how the woman interacts with other characters, her thoughts, and feelings. Indeed, the omniscient narrator is able to tell the story of Louise’s hour of evolution and freedom but the happiness lasted only for an hour before her husband’s arrival. The emotions of the protagonist are fully described and range from grief to extreme happiness and sense of freedom. As a modernist, Katherine Mansfield also experimented with the narration and structure in her works. With the help of the third-person omniscient narrator, Mansfield skillfully shows how Miss Brill is trying to avoid the feeling of loneliness. Moreover, the protagonist’s inner monologs are vital to the understanding of her aversion to that feeling, and the author uses them to demonstrate the woman’s thoughts without disturbing the actions. Miss Brill’s thoughts, as well as the third-person narration, are important to understanding the boundary between reality and imaginative world. Although Miss Brill and Louise Mallard are female protagonists and narrated by the third-person omniscient point of view, the authors reveal their characters in two different ways.
Both authors introduce the omniscient third-person narrators and the protagonists in the first line. Actually, “The Story of an Hour” depicts Louise Mallard’s struggle for selfhood and individuality against society’s prescription for female selflessness and self-sacrifice. However, there is no evidence of patriarchal oppression or the woman’s selfless sacrifice. These implications are read from non-textual suppositions. The only truth is that this story is not about marriage or society, but about Mrs. Mallard. In fact, Mrs. Mallard is sick both physically and emotionally. The very first line of the story tells about it, “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death” (Chopin). And the rest the story explains the nature of this medical condition. The use of a third-person omniscient narrator allows Chopin to relate the whole story that is not limited to the point of view of the protagonist. For example, the story opens with the information Mrs. Mallard does not even know and ends with the events after her death. If Chopin used the first-person narrative, and Louise was telling the story, the reader would be exposed to an absolutely different explanation of her heart disease. Similarly to Chopin, Mansfield uses the first line to introduce a third-person narrator, “Although it was so brilliantly fine - the blue sky powdered with gold and great spots of light like white wine splashed over the Jardins Publiques - Miss Brill was glad that she had decided on her fur” (Mansfield). In fact, Miss Brill is a lonely old woman who teaches English and spends Sundays walking in Jardin Publiques. Initially, the third person perspective demonstrates the reader her room and adds details to learn more about the woman. By brushing her old fur, the author presents the image as if Miss Brill creates an imaginary friend. Moreover, the old woman lays it on her lap comparing the fur to a pet that indicates on the lack of relationship in Brill’s life. Indeed, the woman is isolated and vulnerable who lives as an observer and in an unreal world. She is frozen in time and wears decrepit fur as if it is very a fashionable and beautiful thing in this season.
It is surprising to reveal the fact that Mrs. Mallard is happy to learn the news about her husband’s death, and the third point omniscient narrator shows it through the observation. Louise’s reaction is essential to understand her inner feelings because she was extremely happy to become free. The nonparticipant narrator is important here because Mrs. Mallard does not have to conceal her joy and happiness, which contributes to the emotional revelation of the character and plot development. The omniscient narrator also allows for fewer details and time but still provides the reader with details and important background information. Otherwise, the reader would have to understand everything from the dialogues, which prolong the climax and the story in general. In fact, Chopin admired the oeuvre of Guy de Maupassant who wrote in the realistic genre. He once stated that the writer’s mission is to depict the illusion of life accurately. Moreover, according to the writer, it is important to find a new way of considering the situation that is why Chopin looks at the husband’s death in a new and unique way. She managed to present a disillusioned view of life by depicting true feelings of the protagonist contrasting to the common norms and beliefs of the society of that time. By contrast, Chopin viewed Louise’s story from a new angle that a widow was empowered to live free and happy because Mr. Mallard was no longer alive.
Katherine Mansfield does not offer the explanation of Miss Brill’s past and leaves this chance for readers to create their own conclusions. In similar fashion, she provides the protagonist’s thoughts, emotions, and reactions in the form of the stream of consciousness to characterize her. Both the third-person narrator and the inner monologues of Miss Brill have the effect of the contrast between the idea of the woman of her role in the world and the reality, which states that she is an aging Englishwoman with rich imagination. Indeed, she notices even tiny details and paints a vivid world. She wants to be a part of it but not apart from it and transforms the reality into a stage where she is an actress. When the woman leaves her apartment, the narrator states “She felt a tingling in her hands and arms, but that came from walking, she supposed” (Mansfield). This phrase demonstrates Miss Brill’s lack of self-awareness and that it is her typical way of solving problems. She compares the old couple’s rooms to cupboards, but, finally, she returns to her own room that resembles a cupboard itself. Gradually, Miss Brill begins to see everything in the new lights and her self-awareness was brought by humiliating remarks of the two lovers sitting on the same bench with her who referred to her valuable fur as “a fried whiting” and to the woman as “that stupid old thing”. Definitely, when she throws the fur into the box and hears something crying, the tears are her own. Thus, Chopin uses the stream of consciousness to demonstrate the protagonist’s real feeling because in reality she had to conceal them due to the society’s norms whereas Mansfield chooses this technique to show the imaginative inner world of Miss Brill who in such a way tried to escape loneliness.
In “The Story of an Hour” and “Miss Brill”, Chopin and Mansfield very skillfully use the point of view to plunge the reader into the atmosphere of that house, room, park and plot in general. Without a narrator with limited omniscience, the reader would not realize the true feelings of the women and what had happened to them. With the little background, the stories grasp the reader’s attention with the help of the literary element of point view, which helps to develop the storyline and get into the protagonists’ heads. Both writers sympathize with their protagonists but, finally, reveal the truth and make it cruel and pitiless. If Miss Brill finds strengths to accept the world as it is and continue living, Louise Mallard dies unable to withstand the reality.
Works cited
Chopin, Kate, and Per Seyersted. The Complete Works of Kate Chopin. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2006. Web 02.11.2016
Mansfield, Katherine, and Enda Duffy. The Best Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2010. Web 02. 11. 2016
