Friday, September 7, 2012
"The Story of an Hour," "Miss Brill," and "Araby": Common Ground?
Although written in different time periods and in different cultural contexts, the seemingly disparate works "The Story of an Hour," "Miss Brill," and "Araby" explore similar thematic territory. How and why? Please craft a thoughtful and well-written response of approximately 10 sentences in which you cite from each work at least once. Thank you and looking forward to reading your responses.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I believe that all of the stories share a theme of realizing something that changes their life and outlook on the world and causes a breakdown. In Miss Brill, it was the realization that she was an "actor" She realizes this when she thinks to herself about how when she sits back and watches life, it's like a play. “They were all on the stage. They weren't only the audience, not only looking on; they were acting.” (pg. 564) But when she gets home, her fur starts “crying” maybe because it had lost its reality because now Ms. Brill saw the “truth” of the world and her fur no longer mattered and it was sad. In Araby, the main character also realizes something that causes a slight breakdown. He goes up to the girl who he has a crush on and talks to her about the bazaar. He eventually makes the offer “If I go, I said, I will bring you something.” (pg. 432) So he goes to the bazaar, but arrives late and therefore there aren't many places open to buy things. Then he realizes that he doesn't really want to buy something and therefore “I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless.” (pg. 434) And then, because of that realization, he sees that his vanity in believing that the girl liked him, he did something stupid and gets very mad at himself. In story of an hour, the woman also comes to a realization. This is shown in the text when she says “Free! Body and soul free!” (pg. 158) Her realization is that she is free, whether it is from her husband, or life because she has a heart disease, I'm not really sure, like everything else in the story. This then changes her outlook on the world, for one it becomes happier, shown by her lack of sadness even though her husband died, but then it leads to an actual breakdown. Maybe it was the shock combined with the overload of happiness or both, but when she sees her husband is actually alive, she dies.
ReplyDeleteWhile the three stories we read seemed completely different, they had a few similarities. To me, the main connection between the stories was that all of the characters seemed to be clueless in one way or another and they suffered consequences due to their blindness. In The Story of an Hour it is obvious where the character doesn’t get the full story. The end of the story says, “He had been far from the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine’s piercing cry.” (Pg. 159) Mrs. Mallard did not know that her husband was actually alive. Through strange circumstances, though it was not her fault, it cost her life. In Mrs. Brill, Mrs. Brill was socially inept. This was not as bad as what happened to Mrs. Mallard, but it lead to Mrs. Brill being lonely, and having strange mentality. The boy in the story says, “Why does she come here at all—who wants her? Why doesn’t she keep her silly old mug at home?” (Pg. 564) The obliviousness is also repeated in Araby, when the protagonist obliges to do his “loves” shopping for her while blinded by love. Latter he realizes she is just using him. Once he realized he was being used he admits, “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.” (Pg. 434) So, even though these stories did seem different they did have some surprising similarities that linked them together.
ReplyDeleteAll of the protagonists are trying to deny something big in their lives, and then they experience an epiphany that reveals to them that they had been shielding themselves from the truth. In "Miss Brill", an old woman had a repetitive routine of visiting a park every Sunday to hear a band, with no one to accompany her except a fur that she seemed to personify. On page 564, she compared the setting to a play, and thought "no doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn't been there, she was part of the performance", probably because she wanted to be wanted. Her hopeful idea was shattered when a boy commented "Why does she come here at all--who wants her?” and then she realized that she really didn't matter, which is why on page 565 she went home and cried. In "Araby", a boy reverences a girl, saying on page 431, "her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance” When the girl says she can't go to a bazaar, he is consumed with the idea of going and buying her a gift, but when he arrives at the underwhelming market he barely remembers the point of coming in the first place. He had convinced himself that the bazaar would be spectacular, that he could get the perfect gift to win the girl, and once he got there he realized that he couldn't buy anything to win her affection, because money won't buy love. Earlier his uncle told a ballad of a boy named Arab who also knew money was not as important as love, which likely influenced his realization. Finally, in "Story of an Hour", Mrs. Mallard is told that her husband is dead. She doesn't go through the normal grieving process but instead immediately breaks down, which shows that she was ready to accept his death, and maybe not completely happy in the relationship. It seems she doesn't want to admit this when on page 157, something happy came to her, even though she was recently told her husband had died, and she was reluctant to feel it, "striving to beat it back with her will", and finally embracing it with joy, saying "free!". so perhaps she wanted freedom more than love, though when the realization came to her, she fought it. This is the main similarity in the stories.
ReplyDeleteThough seemingly very different, “The Story of an Hour,” “Miss Brill,” and “Araby” have some definite similarities. One similarity is that in each story the main character seems to be a misfit in their situation. In “The Story of an Hour,” Mrs. Mallard doesn’t fit in to her life with her husband. One line in the story after she finds out that her husband has supposedly died, says,“She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength.” (pg. 157) I think this quote shows how she wasn’t totally happy with her husband. Later in the story, when she finds out he isn’t dead, she dies. This shows that she didn’t fit into life with her husband. In the story of “Miss Brill,” you can tell that Miss Brill, the main character, doesn’t fit in to society. “They were all on stage. The weren’t only the audience, not only looking on; they were acting,” she thinks at one point in the story. (pg. 564)This quote shows how she has to think about other people as actors, instead of just plain people, to fit in. This story clearly shows that Miss Brill is a misfit. In the story “Araby,” the male character is somewhat of a misfit. He obsesses over a girl who then tries to use him to get something from the bazaar. The story says, “I had never talked to her, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.” (pg. 431) This quote talks about how he was afraid to talk to her and how he was obsessed with her. It shows that he doesn’t fit in with her and isn’t a very social boy. She comes up to talk to him first, and when she does, it’s just to talk about the bazaar. He is a misfit when it comes to being with her. These stories are all very different, but their connection is that each character is a misfit in their own way.
ReplyDeleteAlthough these stories are all very different at first glance, “Miss Brill,” “The Story of an Hour,” and “Araby” are all similar. I believe that in each story, the main character is living a relatively sheltered life and hasn’t experienced the real world. When they do finally experience the real world, it comes as a shock. For example, in “The Story of an Hour,” Mrs. Mallard believes she’s experienced the real world when she says, “Free! Body and soul free!” (p. 158). However, she hasn’t: when her husband shows up at the door, she dies: “When the doctors came, they said she had died of heart disease – of joy that kills.” In Miss Brill, the main character realizes that “They were all on the stage. They weren’t only the audience, not only looking on; they were acting. Even she had a part and came every Sunday.” (p. 564). Again, she thinks she’s discovered the real story, but when she hears the children commenting about her, she becomes somewhat depressed. Finally, in Araby, the boy gets his hopes up about finally being able to do something for the girl he loves and says, “If I go…I will bring you something.” (p. 432). However, when he gets to the bazaar and finds that it’s not what he expected, he says, “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.” (p. 434). Therefore, each story has a similar theme: even though a person might think they have experienced life, they may be wrong.
ReplyDelete"Story of an Hour," "Miss Brill," and "Araby" have completely different time periods and settings, however, in each one, the main character has a realization that completely breaks them down and basically leads to grief for all of them. The only exception to that is the main character in "Story of an Hour," who according to the doctors, died of "joy that kills" (Chopin 158). In "Araby," the pessimistic main character seems to have one last chance at optimism, one last chance of having something to believe in (the girl), until he has the realization at the bazaar that because he failed at buying her something at the bazaar, he had failed the chance of ever being with her. This realization had a terrible effect on him and afterwords, he "saw [him]self as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and [his] eyes burned with anguish and anger" (Joyce 434). This reaction to lost hope was extreme but it symbolized not only his last chance to be with the girl he so want to be with, but also his last chance at having something to believe in. In "Miss Brill," in about the middle of the story, Miss Brill expresses her happiness and sense of belonging and what she thought was her realization: that everyone on and around her "special" seat was part of a larger play and they all belonged there. She felt a sense of community at her "realization," but she doesn't actually realize the reality until she hear a young couple talking about her. They say, "Why does she come here at all--who wants her?" (Mansfield 564). After Miss Brill hears this remark, she has her realization that she is not a part of anything bigger than herself at all and she reacts by crying and putting away her fur. In "Story of an Hour," Mrs. Mallard, after being informed that her husband has been killed in a railroad accident is at first struck by an immediate and extreme grief, but afterwards feels a sense of freedom. She seems to mostly feel freedom over grief, but her realization comes when her completely unscathed husband walks through the door. She is struck immediately with happiness mixed with the loss of her newly found freedom and with that realization and her weak heart condition, she dies immediately of heart disease. All of these stories, though different in plot line and time period, have one main similarity: the main characters come to a devastating realization at the end.
ReplyDeleteThe three short stories seemed very different to me but when I looked into them a little more, they actually had some striking similarities. One similarity was that all three of three of the main characters seemed to want something that never quite happened, and then paid a price for trying to make them happen or believing they would happen. For example, in "The Story of an Hour," Mrs. Mallard wants to be free of her husband. When she was told that he had died, she as the book states it, "did not hear the story as many women have heard the same..." (pg 157). After hearing the news and crying a little bit, because she was now alone, she went to her room and began whispering the words "Free! Body and Soul free!" (pg 158). But then, at the end of the story, her husband shows up, alive, and she dies from the shock. In the second story, "Miss Brill," she wants to be liked and social very badly, but her lack of social ability has made her lonely and weird. For example, at the beginning of the story, it tells of how she personifies her fur and truly believes it is her friend even though it is just an article of clothing. By wearing her odd furs and behaving abnormally, she makes people think that she is weird which leads to the young couple listening to the band also say, "Why does she come here at all- who wants her? Why doesn't she keep her silly old mug at home?" (pg 564) and "Its her fu-fur which is so funny, it's exactly like a fried whiting." Finally, in "Araby," the young boy wants the girl to like him so badly that he even says that he will go buy her things at a place he doesn't even want to go to, but she says it would be fun for him to go. So, he has to persuade his uncle to give him money to go, and he ends up getting to the Bazaar way late, and he didn't even end up buying anything because he finally realized, she was tricking him into getting her stuff at the end when he thinks, "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger. While the stories where all written in different time periods in different places, they all had one main similarity which was that the main characters seemed to want something that never quite happened, and then paid a price for trying to make them happen or believing they would happen.
ReplyDelete“The Story of an Hour”, “Miss Brill” and “Araby” are three very dissimilar stories from three different time periods, each with different styles of writing, however, they each have distinct thematic similarities. Throughout each story, the main character suffers a serious let down after deluding themselves with visions of grandeur, this leaves the character in serious mental or physical distress, and the story ends with a lot of uncertainty about the well-being of the character. In “The Story of an Hour,” our main character is told that her husband has died. Although she is sad at first, it was not a healthy marriage, and she soon enters a manic state of glee, repeating the words “Free! Body and soul free!”. Although she appears to be happy, it is clear that she is very unstable, and when her husband suddenly shows up, alive, she is so unstable that the shock of it kills her. This kind of unhealthy delusion presents itself in the short story, “Miss Brill” as well. The namesake of the story, Miss Brill, is an outgoing old woman who plays piano downtown every day. She is overcome with joy and excitement when she discovers that her whole world is a play that she gets to be a part of, and it makes her feel special, but while listening the the ‘hero’ and ‘heroine’ talk, she overhears them whispering about her and saying, “Why does she come here at all- who wants her?” This is the moment when the glass shatters and Miss Brill is no longer ‘special’. The let down doesn’t cure her of her craziness, but she spends the rest of the story in a terrifying and heartbreaking depression. In the story, Araby, the main character suffers less from delusion and more from obsession. He is obsessed with the idea of buying the girl he likes something nice at the bazar, and describes himself as having “hardly any patience with the serious work of life, now that it stood between me and my desire.” But when he is met with the disappointment of a less than spectacular bazar, he falls into what the reader worries is a never ending life of cynicism. Each of the characters in these stories allow themselves to go so high, that the fall from grace is too devestating to handle.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"Araby", "The Story of an Hour", and "Ms. Brill" all have many similarities even though they are written in different periods of time and in different settings. I think the main similarity in these stories is the irony that is shown. For example, in "Araby" the boy thinks that the girl is perfect for him. He doesn't face reality though. At the end of the story, he goes to the bazaar, but it was too late. "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger."-Page 434. I believe that this is enough to show that Mangan's sister and the boy were not meant to be. In "The Story of an Hour" Mrs. Mallard received new that her husband had died. She was in a coma though, and her husband was not dead. He didn't know about the accident though. "He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one."-Page 158. Isn't it ironic? Supposedly, Brently was dead, but he really wasn't. Then at the end of the story, it was Mrs. Mallard who died. I think that this was really ironic. "Ms. Brill" was a little different than these stories because it basically had no plot. Well, I did not find a plot. It still had irony in it though. At one point in the story, Ms. Brill described the band as a play. "It was all a play."- Page 564. This band performance reminded Ms. Brill of plays, and then Ms. Brill was made fun of by the young couple sitting at the park. As she was going home, she didn't do any of the regular things she usually did. At the end of the story, Ms. Brill puts a necklace on the box in which her fur came in, and she closed it. Then it was like she heard a cry. Isn't that ironic? In a play, people usually end up crying, and after Ms. Brill compared the performance to a play, crying was a result. I believe that's really ironic. Like I said before, these stories are written in completely different time periods, and they have different plots, but they all portray irony in their plots.
ReplyDeleteIn all three stories, the main characters come to a realization that they've been shielded from in the past. In "Story of an Hour", Mrs. Mallard receives news that her husband has died; afterwards, she finds herself feeling relieved and free. On page 158, the author writes, "She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder life might be long." This quote shows that she actually wants to continue living her own life, with her husband out of the picture, which she could not completely realize before since he had always been around. The main character in "Araby" becomes obsessed with Mangan's sister and "speaks" to her in the back drawing room in his house. After that night he becomes even more fond of her and is determined to buy her something at the bazaar as a way to show he really cares. However, when he gets there, he soon becomes aware that the whole thing was in his head the entire time. A conversation, on page 434, between English people makes him come to this conclusion:
ReplyDelete--O, I never said such a thing!
--O, but you did!
--O, but I didnt!
--Didn't she say that?
--Yes. I heard her.
--O, there's a fib!
This reminds him of his own situation in which Mangan's sister never actually said anything to him in the drawing room that night and that she never really gave any signs of being interested in the first place. He only realizes this at the very end of the story when he says, "I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity." In "Miss Brill", Miss Brill thinks that she is an actress and a major role in a huge "play" that goes on every Sunday. She gets herself so excited and happy that when she hears a boy and girl talking about her, she realizes that she's not in a fantasy where everyone loves her and she gets hit by the cold reality of it all. On page 564, Miss Brill hears the boy say, "Why does she come at all--who wants her? Why doesn't she keep her silly old mug at home?" When she got home that day, "she unclasped the necklace quickly; quickly without looking laid it inside." This shows how she is now aware that things aren't the way she originally saw them to be.
These three stories are dissimilar, but with a closer look, you can find characteristics
ReplyDeletethat pull them together. One of the big similarities is that all of the main characters are
isolated. In "The Story of an Hour", Mrs. Mallard really has no one who understands her
or who she likes, even her husband. The story says "She had loved him – sometimes.
Often she had not." She seems distant from her sister, too. In "Miss Brill", Miss Brill has
no companions. She is separate from the rest of the people, and her only friend is her
fur, which she calls a "dear little thing". Lastly, in "Araby", we get no indication that the
main character is close to anyone else–friends, family, and the girl he likes. This is
shown by the lack of character details. All three of the main characters are very much
alone in these stories.
At first glance, the short stories “Araby,” “Miss Brill,” and “The Story of An Hour,” seem to have no relation or relevance to one another, but at closer look they are actually quite similar and have similar themes. In “Araby” a boy develops a crush on a girl, which turns a bit obsessive. They have a conversation about how she would like to go to the bazaar Araby but can’t, and how if he goes he will get something for her. He is so excited it becomes all he can think about. He builds up the bazaar to be an amazing affair, and if he can get her a gift, something will happen between them. When the night comes, it does not go as planned because his uncle comes home hours after he says he will and the boy is all alone on the train ride there. When he gets to the bazaar, it is is only half-lit and only a few stalls are still open. The boy is very frustrated, stating, “Remembering with difficulty why I had come, I went over to one of the stalls and examined porcelain cases and flowered tea-sets,” and doesn’t really remember the reason for coming or why it was so important to him. Nobody really wants to sell him anything either and he becomes angry and sad, and the whole thing is a letdown for him. Before, he thought that if he could make it to the bazaar, buy her something nice, and give it to her, she would realize how amazing he is and like him back. He connects the two events from the beginning, and in the end when Araby does not work out, he sees this as a sign that he and the girl will not work out. It doesn’t really seem like a very significant story for him, it’s just about him liking this girl, but it is actually great lesson for him, that in life, things aren’t always what they seem, or what you think they are going to be. In “Miss Brill,” an optimistic woman goes out to do her normal Sunday routine, watching the town’s community band play and to watch other people around this area at this time. She is wearing a fur piece, one of her most treasured possessions. After a while, Miss Brill realizes that this scene is like a play, and that she and everyone around her are all actors on a stage. “Miss Brill’s eyes filled with tears and she looked smiling at all the other members of the company. Yes, we understand, we understand, she thought-though what they understood she didn’t know.” I think this line shows that she believes she is a part of something much bigger than herself, and has a sort of “we’re all in this together,” type of attitude about her and the people around her. That even though they’re different on the outside, they are deep down all the same. Then she hears a young couple talking about her, making fun of her and laughing at her fur, something she holds very dearly. Then she realizes that they all see her as some kind of freak and feels that her idea about life being a play and almost crying about it was silly when to everyone else it meant virtually nothing. She has the same realization that the boy in “Araby” does, that life isn’t always what you think it is. Finally in “The Story of An Hour,” a woman learns that her husband has died. She does not deny his death, pace about, pull her hair, or do any of the “normal” things one would do when they learn this news, but instead she immediately starts sobbing. After, she is somewhat sad, but not that sad because she and her husband did not have a great relationship. She becomes excited for her new life without her husband, telling herself that she is “free.” She then pictures what she will do, and realizes that she can finally live for no one but herself saying “But she saw beyond that butter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to herself absolutely.” All of a sudden, her husband walks through the door and she dies. It’s a bit more of a stretch with this story, but the message here is that life isn’t always what it seems, except in this case much more literally. The main theme of each of these stories is that life is not always what we make it to be, and that being hopeful and having high expectations can be hurtful and disappointing.
ReplyDeleteDespite the differences in time period and cultural context of "Story of an Hour", "Miss Brill", and "Araby", the three do have similarities in theme. In my opinion, what they all have in common is that they all express the idea of lost opportunity. For instance in "Story of an Hour", Mrs. Mallard thinks "There would be no one to live for in the coming years, she would live for herself." At least in the moment, she looks past the sadness of her husband's passing, and at what she views as a chance to be truly happy. This chance is eliminated almost immediately after, when she dies, of "the joy that kills." In "Miss Brill", her entire life seems to be a missed opportunity. And to make up for it, she lives out her dreams as if she is someone else. "It was like a play, it was exactly like a play!" she thinks, as she decides that she is merely in a performance. And in "Araby", he eagerly waits for the opportunity to arrive for him to be the hero. But when it finally comes, he misses it. More than any of the other main characters (Mrs. Mallard dies, and Miss Brill is simply oblivious), his lost opportunity is followed by regret. "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger", the story finishes. Even though the settings are so different, the idea is the same: with every step we take, there is another one we could have taken.
ReplyDeleteWhen you realize you forgot your wallet on the way to the store, you turn around and get it. This is similar to the way these characters reacted to certain events in their lives. Mrs. Mallard, the main character in "The Story of an Hour," came to the sudden realization that her husband had died. Her life had instantly changed. She was both ecstatic and depressed, as shown in this statement: "And yet she loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being," (Chopin 158). She was altered by this event, seeing it as the turning point in her life (until she learned that her husband was still alive). In "Miss Brill," she saw that her life was merely a play, one of which she was an actress. As she sees this new perspective of life, she realizes her roll: "No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn't been there; she was part of the performance after all," (Mansfield 564). Miss Brill sees that her importance in life is to be an actress and be present in the play. The realization in "Araby" was that the boy saw that he didn't want to be a slave to the girl he thought he loved. As be enters the bazaar, he knows that he doesn't want to be there. After claiming that he didn't want to buy anything, he sees himself as someone desperate and driven by love. As a conclusion to the story, Joyce wrights, "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger," (434). In all of the stories, realizations caused the main characters to recognize a change in their lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteI think that all three of the stories have the common theme of death, but not always literal death. For example: in "Araby" and "Miss Brill" the character dies in the inside by loosing hope. In Araby on page 434, the boy says, "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger." This is the part in the story where the boy looses hope of ever being with Mangan's sister. In Miss Brill on page 565, the narrator says, "But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying." This is where Miss Brill has realized that she is not young an more and how lonely she is. She has lost hope of ever feeling young again. Now in "Story of an Hour" there is literal death. You learn that she dies on page 158, when the doctors assume that she died "of joy that kills." I guess that in this case there was also some figurative death too. She was so happy to be free to do whatever she wanted but in the end she had never had any freedom in the first place. She lost hope of ever being free again.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the short stories “Araby”, “Story of an Hour” and “Miss Brill” I realized all of the protagonists develop into more confident and independent individuals. For example, in Araby, the boy can not muster up the courage to speak to a girl. He says on page 431 “I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not, or if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration.” Towards the end of the story the boy was going to buy a gift for her but after an epiphany he realized she was using him and h e was acting trivial over such an obsession. Similarly, Mrs. Mallard explains on page 158 “’What could love, the unsolved mystery count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion’ which she suddenly recognized as the strongest pulse of her being”. This shows how she feels controlled by her husband. However, when she thinks he’s dead, she feels like the rest of her life will be worth living. Yet, when she realizes that he is actually alive, she suddenly dies. After believing that nobody ever notices her, Miss Brill begins to realize that even if her whole life is insignificant, she can accept the truth. A quote that shows she’s invisible is on page 562 “She had become really quite expert, she thought, at listening as though she didn’t listen, at sitting in other people’s lives just for a minute while they talked round her.” As seen in each of their scenarios they become secure in their own ways.
ReplyDeleteAlthough "Story of an Hour," "Miss Brill" and "Araby" are all set in different time periods and locations, they share similar themes. In "Story of an Hour," Mrs. Mallard, the main character, learns that her husband died in a railroad disaster. Immediately, she breaks down with "paralyzed inability to accept its significance." (Chopin 157) However, after responding, "as many women have," (Chopin 157) she is overcome with a feeling of independence. "Free! Body and soul free!" (Chopin 158) As she looks out the window, she sees everything in a new light. "Spring days, summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long." (Chopin 158) Finally, she would be able to live for herself and do what she really wanted. After she comes out of her room and walks downstairs with her sister, her husband appears at the door, knowing nothing of the accident. Suddenly, Mrs. Mallard dies of heart disease, the "joy that kills." (Chopin 158) In "Miss Brill," Miss Brill is under the illusion that she is an actress, and that she is part of a community. "No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn't been there; she was part of the performance after all." (Mansfield 564) However, after she overhears a young couple saying "Why does she come here at all - who wants her?" (Mansfield 564), she comes to the harsh realization that it is not a play, but simply people enjoying the park and the band on a Sunday afternoon. Finally, in "Araby", a young boy becomes seemingly obsessed with one of his friend's sister. She consumes all of his thoughts, "Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance." (Joyce 431) When she finally talks to him, she asks him if he will be going to Araby, a supposedly splendid bazaar. She tells him that she is unable to go, and since he is so desperate for her attention, he volunteers to go and bring her back something. Throughout the story, he faces many obstacles in getting to the bazaar. He needs money from his uncle in order to go, but his uncle comes home later than usual that day. Once at the bazaar, he cannot find the sixpenny entrance. Only minutes after he arrives, the lights start going out, and the bazaar closes. "Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger." (Joyce 434) This shows that the young boy realizes that he and the girl are not meant to be together. This story is set in Ireland, during a time when most of the culture was orientated around Catholicism. Many religious references were made throughout the story, and I think that the boy wasn't necessarily obsessed with the girl, but more obsessed with the idea of something new and different than what his life revolved around. In conclusion, even though these three stories have different settings and time periods, they all share a similar theme. The main character in each of these short stories comes to a realization that changes their outlook on life after being under an illusion.
ReplyDeleteThe stories Ms. Brill, Story of an Hour and Araby honestly have a lot differences. For instance they all have very different characters and very different plots. Yet there are things that I found very similar. One thing is that the characters are all very much alone. In Ms. Brill it is quite clear that she doesn't really have any friends unless you count her fur which I wouldn't. This is shown very clearly on page 564 where " the couple in love" say that no one wants her there and don't know why she comes any ways. In Story of an Hour the main character clearly doesn't like her husband which is pretty much the only person that is shown to be even significantly close to her. In Araby it shows that he has friends but given that they are not fully developed at all I think it is safe to say that they are either not important or aren't very close to him. Another thing I think these stories have in common is that they all have something that isn't there. In Ms. Brill she thinks she is in a performance which is not true at all. In Story of an Hour people think that Mrs. Mallard loves her husband but she really doesn't which proven when she says on page 158 that the strongest impulse of her being is the possession of self-assertion. In Araby the main character thinks that the girl he likes is some sort of supernatural being given how he almost idolizes her on page 431 when he says that her image accompanied her eve to the place most hostile to romance.
ReplyDelete"Araby", "Miss Brill" and "Story of an hour" are totally different stories, but on some level are quite similar. Although the plot and the time periods are different all of the stories have some sort of loss woven into them. "Miss Brill". Page 564. "But why? Because of that stupid old thing at the end there?" asked the boy...The woman has realized that she is no longer young, she has lost her young self and she realizes she is getting really old. "Araby". Page 434. "Gazing up into the darkness i saw myself as a creature driven and derided..." The boy has just realized that he isn't right for Mangan's sister, his only optimistic dream crushed, after idolizing her to be almost a god. "Story of an hour". Page 157. "It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list...". Mrs. Mallard lost her husband. And soon after she lost her own life.
ReplyDeleteWhen stories are first read, the reader does not always see the meaning hidden deep within. That is how i felt until i read the stories "Miss Brill", "Story of an Hour", and "Araby" twice then three times over to see the connection that lay beneath the surface of the text. The story of "Araby" tells the tale of a boy who develops this crush on a girl. They speak to each other and she wants to go to this bazaar but she can't so the boy puts it on him to go bring her something and makes it so the only way they can be together is if he brings her something. Only when he reaches there and finds all the shops closed does he come to his senses and see that they would never be together. This realization comesup in the last line of the story on page 434 where he "saw himself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; his eyes burned with anguish and anger." Here the theme reality isn't always what it seems comes up and is what i believe to be the common theme of these stories. In "Miss Brill", she is a lady who believes her life is a play. During her sunday routine, she sees the band play and the people walk by and believes they are all actors including herself in a play. Only when a boy and girl make fun of her and her fur coat, which is one of her most prized possessions, does she realize that her reality isn't necessarily true. The boy and girl say (on page 564 at the end of the page) "why does she come hereat all-who wants her?... It's her fu-fur which is so funny,"which makes her see the reality in her life. Lastly, we have "the Story of an Hour" in which Mrs. Mallard, a woman with heart trouble, is informed of her husband's death. She begins to sob immediately, but then realizes that she no longer bound by her husband she is "free, free, free!" which she whispers under her breath on page 157 near the end. When her husband returned, he was too late for Mrs. Mallard had had been overjoyed with her newly gained freedom that she died from her heart condition,"of joy that kills". This though a little more extreme then the other two this still demonstrates that her reality wasnt really the truth, it was more of her desires that she wanted to be true then reality. As you can see three very different separate stories can still be related by one common theme.
ReplyDeleteI think that the three short stories “Araby”, “Miss Brill”, and “The Story of an Hour” all have despair in common. In each one, one of the characters seems to give up or lose hope.
ReplyDeleteIn “The Story of an Hour”, I think it shows this the most by the main character. She seems to give up hope and want to go to the dead when she realizes that her husband had been killed. I think that she thinks that she is going to die because of her heart condition soon anyway so she might as well die now to join her husband. It describes this multiple times. The few I spotted out were page 157 paragraphs 9 and 10. In paragraph 9 it states that “she was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will – as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.” Here I think she is describing that when she first saw the thing coming towards her, she was ready to fight and keep her ground. But as it got closer, she realized that she was hopeless and would never win. In paragraph 10, it says, “When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: “Free, free, free!” To me this is saying that she eventually gave in to the object and let it win over her letting her soul be free to roam the world. After re-reading the short story I found that there was one more spot that hits desperation right in the stomach. That was paragraph 13 on page 158; it said “She knew that she would weep again we she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and grey and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.” This talks about the fact she knew that she would think about death again because of her “tender hands folded in death”.
In “Araby”, desperation isn’t shown until very end of the story when the main character is at the Bazaar. Desperation relates back to the passage on page 434, paragraphs 20 and 21: “I lingered before her stall, knowing my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real…Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.” Here it is talking about how as he was walking around the bazaar, he realized that his greatest love in life had tricked him into buying something for her simply to be ignorant. When the last light in the bazaar went off he realized that there was no reason to be there and he had just wasted his time, so he gave up on his love and went home.
In “Miss Brill” though, the word despair is not is conspicuous. Miss Brill shows the actions of sadness or despair by wearing clothing that might make her feel different than herself or when she sits on the train bench every Saturday by herself watching other people’s conversations. It shows a bit of this in paragraph 1 as well as paragraphs 4-8.
I think that the three stories all have a common theme of love and death in them, and the contortion of both so that it is hard to tell where each of them are used. In "Araby", the boy's purpose is to get a girl he thinks he likes to like him to. He is so consumed with love that he does not realize the unnamed girl does not actually like him. This unusual way of looking at love carries on to "Story of an Hour", in which Mrs. Mallard discovers her husband is dead. At first she reacts with grief and sadness, but then she becomes joyful. In the end, it is unclear whether or not she is happy when she dies of a heart attack after seeing her husband alive. Death is used as a symbol of freedom for Mrs. Mallard, and the love she felt was largely mixed with feelings of hate. In "Ms. Brill" on page 563, the main character, who's mental psyche is very questionable, sees a young woman toss flowers onto the ground. When a boy gives them back to him, she acts "As if they were poison", suggesting that she did not like the person who gave them to her. Mrs. Brill also notices other couple walk by, including a couple who she did not like because the man passively ignored the woman, and blew cigarette smoke. In these three stories, love and death are shown sometimes interchangeable, as in "Story of an Hour", andsometimes hardly related, like the priest who died in the house of the boy in "Araby". But it is related, because the Catholic priest presented a conflict for the Catholic boy, and the girl who had a different religion.
ReplyDeleteThe Story of an Hour, Miss Brill, and Araby have a similar theme that breaks cultural and historical borders. In all 3 stories, the characters thought their lives were one way until a significant event took place in the story. In “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs.Mallard perceives her husband’s death as beneficial to her life. Between paragraphs 14 and 15, she whispers “Free! Body and soul free!” as though a great burden was lifted off of her. Also, when she looks out of the window of her bedroom she sees a whole new world of opportunity, joy, and freedom that the author describes as “drinking in a very exilir of life” which paints the pictures that life without her husband is paradise. Yet she relishes the sight of her husband so much that she dies of joy. In Miss Brill, Miss Brill thinks she is a part of the scene at the parade. She takes pride in being a self-proclaimed “actress” in the play of life. But when she overhears children referring to her as a “silly old mug” and making fun of her fur at the end of page 564, she faces the fact that her golden years have been long over and is really no more than an extra in her metaphorical play. In Araby, the boy thinks he and Meagan’s sister are destined to share a lovely relationship together. He describes his lust over her as “confused adoration” and makes it seems as if a relationship between him and her are part of God’s plan when he says “ Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand.” But when he actually goes to the bazaar to buy her a present and has the epiphany that the probability of him sharing a intimate relationship with Meagan’s sister is 0%, he doesn’t buy her a present at all. In my opinion , the theme that binds these 3 stories together is “A person’s perception of life is very deluded until they meet reality.”
ReplyDeleteMiss Brill, Story of an Hour, and Araby are all similar in that they have themes relating to life and death. In Miss Brill, she refuses to believe that her fur is dead, she wants to have something living to live her life with because inside she is just a lonely woman who is probably going to die alone. She knows this, and so she creates something the live her life with. She also lives her life through others, listening to their lives as if they were her own. That is how she gets through life. In Story of an Hour, the protagonist goes into shock upon hearing that her husband, even though they had not had a perfect marriage, had died. She has so many emotions going on inside of her, such as wondering whether his death was good or bad, but the only one she wants to let out is happiness. When she hears that her husband is still alive, she dies because she is not sure if she wants to live with her bad marriage or die with it. In Araby, the main character is awoken to the harshness of life after he finds out that a girl he was head over heels for had tricked him into buying free stuff. He always thought love would be the highlight of his life, and it would make everything absolutely amazing, but when he learns that it can be used as just a tool to get free stuff from him, he is outraged. Although the narrator does not die in Araby, he certainly must have weighed the pros and cons of life vs death.
ReplyDelete