Imprisonment and Materialism: de Maupassant's and Chopin's Criticisms of Gender and Marriage - Research Paper Example

? Imprisonment and materialism: de Maupassant's and Chopin's criticisms of gender and marriage August 9, Introduction de Maupassant's “The Necklace” and Chopin's “The Story of An Hour” describe the lives of dynamic female characters, where one embraces, while the other rejects, traditional gender roles. A feminist and formalistic reading of these stories reveals similarities and differences in how these two authors use style, form, and content to explore their criticisms of gender and marriage. de Maupassant and Chopin both use the form of a short story with dynamic characters, symbolic settings, brief, but engaging plots with shocking endings, and internal conflicts to depict their criticisms of marriage and gender roles, though they have differences in their underlying ideas about women; in addition, their writing styles differ, where de Maupassant writes more explicitly about gender roles by focusing on imagery, while Chopin uses imagery and symbolism to depict the imprisonment that marriage brings to women; these writers also have different protagonists, in the sense that Mrs. Mallard has awaken to her new un-gendered identity, while Mme. Loisel has completely embraced traditional gender roles; de Maupassant and Chopin, nevertheless, similarly use irony to demonstrate the impossibility of breaking gender norms. The Elements and Effectiveness of a Short Story de Maupassant and Chopin both use the form of a short story with dynamic characters, symbolic settings, brief, but engaging plots with surprising twists, and internal conflicts, though they have differences in their notions about women. A short story provides a brief, but intimate encounter with characters and their common lives. This format is effective in criticizing gender and marriage, since it provides enough detail to understand what these characters are going through via the lens of their experiences, but at the same time, its brevity allows for diverse and deep interpretations of its elements, when formalistic and feminist analyses are applied to their text. “The Necklace” and “The Story of An Hour” have characters that are dynamic, because they evolve throughout the story. Mrs. Mallard changes from a traditional wife to a liberal thinking woman. She is supposed to be weeping for months or even years for her dead husband, but in an hour, she transforms herself and feels “free” (Chopin, 1894). She actually feels better after his death than when he is alive. Mathilde also changes from a carefree and materialistic woman to a typical married one, where she finally became part of the social class she belongs to. At first, all she does is complain about not fitting the world she lives in, with a common clerk for a husband: “She suffered intensely, feeling herself born for every delicacy and every luxury” (de Maupassant, par. 3). She changes completely, however, after losing a precious diamond necklace she just borrowed from a friend: “She learned the rough work of the household, the odious labors of the kitchen” (de Maupassant, par. 99). It can be seen from these changes in the major characters that de Maupassant disapproves of materialistic women, while Chopin supports liberal and open-minded women. Furthermore, these writers both believe that marriage has its downfalls, because it reinforces the disengagement of women from their individual goals and dreams. Mathilde becomes a commoner's wife, which Mrs. Mallard shares. They both work alongside their husbands, as they live each day focusing on ensuring that they make ends meet. They have to lay aside their personal aspirations and goals, because that would be blasphemous in the society they live in. Women forget their “selves,” when married. They only have to remember to serve their masters or their husbands. In addition, Chopin focuses on one setting, Mrs. Mallard's house, while de Maupassant varies the locations of Mathilde’s dreams and nightmares, though these writers both use setting to also criticize social norms and structures. The house in these stories represent the repression of women as women and as “being married.” Chopin, by keeping Mrs. Mallard in her house, demonstrates this character's bondage. As a woman, she is supposed to take care of her family;s needs. As a married woman, she lives for the man of the house. She has no freedom of her own, while Brent can go anywhere he pleases. It is no wonder then that when Brent died, Mrs. Mallard feels “a monstrous joy that held her” (Chopin, 1894), because she is finally free. No one else would plan her months ahead but she alone. She has been freed from her bondage of marriage, for she had been freed from her husband and marriage, an institution that has forced her to stay in their house permanently. de Maupassant, however, adds a “party” setting to allow Mathilde the experience of being who she is not- a classy woman in a classy social engagement. In the party: “She danced with delight, with passion, intoxicated with pleasure, thinking of nothing, in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success...” (de Maupassant, par. 54). For just one night, she becomes an upper-class, enjoying the comforts and freedom of the elite. But for de Maupassant, these social experiences are mere frivolities. The more that Mathilde gives importance to being rich, the more she has hastened to plunge to her doom. It is probable that she loses her necklace, as she hurries away so that others would not see her shabby “wraps.” As she extends her delusions of being rich, she ironically embeds herself to being poor, since she loses this supposedly diamond necklace. de Maupassant shows his readers that vanity and materialism are high prices to pay. They serve nothing to society, and yet society values them too much. “The Necklace” and “The Story of An Hour” have main characters suffering from internal conflicts, but there are differences in what their conflicts are. Mrs. Mallard, at first, struggles with her “monstrous joy” (Chopin, 1894), because it is immoral to feel happy after one's husband just died. She later on realizes that she deserves this “joy,” because she is “free.” Her struggle with society remains, nevertheless. She knows that her society will only let widowed women be free, but not married ones. And so when she sees her husband alive once more, she dies from “joy” too. This is the joy of choosing to not be married again. Mathilde also suffers from her internal conflict, because she desires another life, the charming life of the upper class. She has the beauty and grace to exist in this world, but she cannot, because she is a common woman. The plot shows de Maupassant's derision for women who claim for more, when this “more” is not worth living for. Because of Mathilde’s lack of satisfaction with her life, she suffers and becomes more entrenched in the lower-class status she abhors. de Maupassant and Chopin use creativity in the endings of their plots, where they both employ shocking endings for their climaxes. Mrs. Mallard instantly dies when she sees her husband is alive. It is shocking how the news of her husband's death does not kill her, with her heart condition, but she dies immediately when she sees him breathing still. But her death is unsurprising, since she cannot fathom how she can continue living, after tasting an hour of freedom. An article compares her freedom to a “sexual union,” as she meets her freedom with “both fear and anticipation” (Deneau, 2003, p. 211). It is shocking that after this union, Louise decides to never go back to being Mrs. Mallard. This shows Chopin's belief that marriage is a solid institution with solid boundaries; it can never allow the existence of “wayward” wives, and so Louise has no choice but to exit life, while she is still free. As for Mme. Loisel, she learns that she worked hard for ten years for nothing. She accepted, what for her is her cruel fate of poverty, because she did not want to be imprisoned for her foolishness and pride. Later on, Mme. Forester reveals that the diamond necklace is not genuine. This twist underscores de Maupassant's “pessimism and his need to deny some of society's ideals” (Bloom, 2004, p. 17). His pessimism is present in denying meaning to Mme. Loisel's sacrifice, because this shows his aversion for the indulgence and materialism of women and society in general. One article notes that the what happened to Mathilde shows “the price to be paid for crass materialism and false pride” (Kleine-Ahlbrandt, 2004, p.3). Writing Styles These two authors have different writing styles differ, where de Maupassant writes more explicitly about gender roles by use of imagery, while Chopin uses more imagery and symbolism to depict the imprisonment that marriage brings to women, though they both employ repetition for emphasis. de Maupassant uses detail to “emphasize the value placed upon objects, the fantasized Oriental tapestry in the story’s opening serving as a fine example” (Brackett, 2010, p.2). de Maupassant works on the character's senses to allow readers to experience the world from the character's viewpoint. He uses details on smell, sight, touch, and sound to explore the richness of the setting and Mathilde's dreams for a different life. Mathilde is so different when she was “...elegant, gracious, smiling, and mad with joy” (de Maupassant, par. 54) during the party, but later on, she forces herself to drudgery to pay for a diamond necklace: “She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and the towels, which she dried on a rope; she carried down the garbage to the street every morning, and she carried up the water, pausing for breath on every floor...” (de Maupassant, par. 99). It can be seen from these images that Mathilde changed from a commoner to the elite and back to being a commoner. The way de Maupassant describes women, however, both upper and lower-class, underscores his low opinions of women: Women have no class and no breeding. Their beauty, their grace, their charm are substitutes for birth and family. Their instinctive shrewdness, their predilection for elegance, their suppleness of spirit are their only system of rank, and in this way the daughters of the common people are the equals of the great ladies. (Kleine-Ahlbrandt, 2004, p.3). For him, women are too prone to pride and materialism, because society shapes them to think and act with no sense of genuine class. Chopin relies more on imagery and symbolism to depict the imprisonment that marriage brings to women. Nature imagery is present in Chopin's plot and meaning (Rosenblum, 2004, p.2). For instance, the trees in this statement represent the branching out to her new life: “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life” (Chopin, 1894). The “birds” are symbols for freedom. When Chopin says “The delicious breath of rain was in the air,” she produces the image of happiness, a happiness so real that one can taste it in the air. Also, Brentley’s so-called death happens in the spring, instead of the usual winter or autumn in other short stories (Rosenblum, 2004, p.2). There is special meaning in this season, when the trees are “all aquiver” with new life (Rosenblum, 2004, p.2). Rain just purified the air and the clouds are slowly separating from each other to show “patches of blue sky.” This scene depicts Louise’s situation. Her husband's death ends the winter of her life: “She can realize the full potential of her life, so she, like the trees, feels aquiver with life” (Rosenblum, 2004, p.2). The clouds stand for her married life, which shadow her dreams, but as they part, they signify her freedom (Rosenblum, 2004, p.2). When she also thinks of her future, she thinks of “spring days and summer days,” not autumn or winter days, because these seasons reflect her “season of rebirth and ripening” (Rosenblum, 2004, p.2). The house represents the “symbol of domesticity” (Rosenblum, 2004, p.2). Nature is absent inside her house. Mrs. Mallard cannot even go and leave as she pleases, since Brentley has its key. Brentley has his freedoms, but she is trapped inside this house, inside their marriage. While nature surrounds her, the house also represents the “up” and “down” of Louise's life (Rosenblum, 2004, p.2). Upstairs, Louise looks outward to nature and the life that awaits her. In her room, she feels elevated. When she leaves this room and goes downstairs, it is an act that “foreshadows her loss of freedom” (Rosenblum, 2004, p.2). She descends from the heights of her glory and success to her “hell” of marriage (Rosenblum, 2004, p.2). Beneath the stairs await her husband and her return to her cloistered life. Repetition is a common style for de Maupassant and Chopin. Chopin uses the word “free” several times in her story, while de Maupassant uses the terms “pretty” and “beauty,” as well as their other physical and material manifestations. The word “free” coincides with the words “birds” and “window” that depict Louise's short-term freedom. de Maupassant uses the terms “pretty” and “beauty” to stress the physical limitations of beauty and social status. He underscores that materialism is connected with what women and society see as “beauty,” and so this “beauty” is false and deceiving too. Content These two writers also have different protagonists, in the sense that Mrs. Mallard has awaken to her new un-gendered identity, while Mme. Loisel has completely embraced traditional gender roles. Louise is no longer Mrs. Mallard, after reveling in her freedom. She has turned into Louise again, someone who has just drank the “very elixir of life” (Chopin, 1894). This elixir stands for hew newfound freedoms, where all “Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days” (Chopin , 1894) would be hers and hers alone. There will no longer a Mr. Mallard to chain her to her home. She realizes the power of a free woman and she walks downstairs as the “goddess of Victory” (Chopin, 1894). But this victory is too short-lived. Downstairs, the end of her freedom just enters the room. She knows she cannot go back, after un-gendering herself. So she dies instead. On the contrary, Mathilde embraces her gender roles. She acts like a commoner's wife, after losing a precious necklace. She immerses herself in her everyday chores, so that she can help her husband repay their mountains of debts. This can indicate that de Maupassant agrees in this, because Mathilde should suffer, but not because gender roles are right. Instead, de Maupassant focuses on the suffering of a woman who lives for materialism and does not rebel against the roles that society imposes on her. de Maupassant and Chopin similarly use irony to demonstrate the impossibility of breaking gender norms. When Louise is said to have died from “joy that kills,” this is one of the “context-based” irony that Shen refers too. Shen defines “context-based” as not just based on the situation, but on the entire context itself. For instance, he finds irony that Mrs. Mallard sees a “new spring life” (Chopin, 1894), when she is supposed to be in the stage of “bereavement” (Shen, 2009, p.117). As the context is further analyzed, its irony will be fully determined (Shen, 2009, p.117). Irony is also present when “great care was taken” (Chopin, 1894) was taken to inform Mrs. Mallard that her husband had died. The use of “veiled hints” (Chopin, 1894) show that people who know Mrs. Mallard do not know her at all. They thought that this piece of bad news would break her completely. In reality, Mrs. Mallard is actually relieved. She weeps, but only as a normal reaction. She later on feels joy, which is the more rational for a freed woman. But this joy kills her too, because she cannot be married again, which is the ironic ending of Chopin's story. Her joy dies with her, for she would rather die than live married again. Thus, another irony surfaces. The more that her society thinks that she died from joy, the more that society does not learn to change itself. Instead, society remains permanently the same, where women are made women for purposes of oppression, and where marriage remains an institution of imprisonment for women. “The Necklace” also shares its ironic twist, when pride and materialism lead to Mathilde's downfall: “The Loisels pay an incalculable personal price, both literally and figuratively, for Mathilde’s vanity” (Brackett, 2010, p.2). The ending demonstrates that materialism does not pay; it will not help people become better human beings. Mathilde cannot struggle against her fate, if she cannot fight the gender roles of her society. de Maupassant, however, does not say in the end, if Mathilde learned something more from her experience (Brackett, 2010, p.2). Perhaps this means that Mathilde will never change at all. She might even go back to her old self, by asking for the diamond bracelet and making up for her lost youth. This demonstrates de Maupassant's pessimism with materialistic women. They cannot learn at all from their experiences, because their character flaws will render them useless in the face of changing completely. Conclusion Two stories show how two women live through the cycle of life and death in a short story format. Mathilde’s dreams of a fancy life dies when she is forced to work hard to pay for a lost piece of jewelery. Louise dies as a married woman and lives again as a free widow. In both stories, marriage acted as a chain around these women's necks, because they worked for their families, particularly their husbands. The main difference in these characters is that Louise died to preserve her new life, while Mathilde lived on to suffer a miserable one. These stories also use short story elements to depict that married woman are imprisoned to their gender roles, because marriage is a patriarchal trap. de Maupassant and Chopin differ somewhat in their writing styles, as the latter develops her symbolism for marriage and gender more than the former. Finally, these writers have different ideas on women, but they share the same beliefs that there is irony on how some women can even conceive of changing their freedoms, when being a married woman ensures that they are eternally hinged to socially-molded gender roles. There is no respite or escape from society. Only death can permanently end the boundaries that society has imposed on women. References Bloom, H. (2004). Biography of Guy de Maupassant. Bloom's Major Short Story Writers: Guy De Maupassant, 15-17. Retrieved from Literary Reference Center. Brackett, V. (2010). The necklace. Masterplots, 1-3. Retrieved from Literary Reference Center. Chopin, K. (1894). The story of an hour. Retrieved from http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/hour/ de Maupassant, G. (1884). The necklace. Retrieved from http://www.bartleby.com/195/20.html Deneau, D.P. (2003). Chopin's 'The story of an hour.' Explicator, 61 (4): 210-213. Retrieved from Literary Reference Center. Kleine-Ahlbrandt, W. L. (2004). The necklace. Masterplots II: Short Story Series, 1-3. Retrieved from Literary Reference Center. Rosenblum, J. (2004). The story of an hour. Masterplots II: Short Story Series, 1-2. Retrieved from Literary Reference Center. Shen, D. (2009). “Non-ironic turning ironic contextually: Multiple context-determined irony in “The story of an hour”.” Journal of Literary Semantics, 38 (2), 115-130. 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