Comparison Essay Between Story of an Hour and Rose for Emily

REPRESSION OF WOMAN IN THE 19th CENTURY

Since the beginning of time, women have been treated as second class citizens. Therefore, women were forced to face many problems. Because of this women were repressed. At that time, the Napoleonic Code stated that women were controlled by their husbands and cannot freely do their own will without the authority of their husband. This paper shows how this is evident in the “Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and “ A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner. In both stories, the use of literary elements such as foreshadowing, symbolism, and significant meaning of the titles are essential in bringing the reader to an unexpected and ironic conclusion.

The background of both authors, which was from the South, we can conclude how they could described the situations that they faced such as political and social presumptions problems especially for women at that time. The story explains how

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Chopin wrote how women were to be “seen but not heard”. “The wife cannot plead in her own name, without the authority of her husband, even though she should be a public

trader, or noncommunicant, or separate in property. “ (Kreis 1) This is one of the Code Napoleon that shows women have no right and position at that time. However after World War II, most of the men were going to war and left the women, who make them finally, could get their freedom to do anything or their own because they have to do it to survive.

Chopin’s stories seem very