The Awakening Criticism

In Virginia Ross’s criticism, “Kate Chopin’s Motherless Heroine”, the author tries to prove that the main reason behind Edna Pontellier’s actions was a yearning for a mother.  The author points out the many instances in which Edna is drawn to Adele Ratignolle.  Edna is in admiration of Adele’s physical beauty throughout the novel.  Ross explains that “Edna is drawn to Adele because of Adele is the embodiment of maternity defined by her current pregnancy and her ministrations to her children.”(Ross 254).  Edna seems to be jealous of the special bond that Monsieur Ratignolle and Adele Ratignolle share such as a child feeling excluded from their parents’ intimacy.  Adele is compared to the Madonna by Edna.  With this act, Edna is comparing Adele to a symbol of unconditional maternal comfort that is absent from her Protestant background.  Ross also points out the way in which Edna describes the sea with a shift from prose style to more alliterative language.  Before she met Robert, Edna had only admired men from a distance and did not use the same type of language to describe them as she did with the sea.  Throughout this criticism there are a few psychological terms that are mentioned that help to explain Edna’s actions.  These refer to stages in child development proving how childlike Edna was.  Ross makes a point that “Sadly, the woman [Mr. Pontellier] expected always to carry out the maternal role turns out to have an urgent need for a mother herself. “   I believe that the argument was presented very strongly.  Ross writes that “…Edna’s choice to go to Adele instead of inventing a pretext and staying with her lover, who has seemed to be her sole preoccupation for many months, is more convincingly explained by the supposition that her tie to Adele is actually the stronger attachment.”  This statement convinced me to agree with Ross on Edna’s yearning for a mother.  I was very confused throughout the novel as to why Edna did the things that she did.  Many of her actions and thoughts seem to contradict each other.  Ross’s theory seems to be consistently supported throughout the entire novel and helped me to make better sense of the protagonists’ motives. 

"The Story of an Hour" Response

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin made me kind of angry.  Mrs. Mallard was being so selfish that it killed her in the end.  Of what the story told, she had no reason not to like her husband.  He “had never looked save with love upon her” (Chopin 2), yet she still only loved him sometimes.  She was filled with happiness after the fact that her husband was “dead” had sunk in.    Also, it seemed that everyone else in Mrs. Mallard’s life could not see a reason for her to be glad when Mr. Mallard died, so naturally, they would assume that she would be distraught at his death.  Mrs. Mallard felt so free after she comprehended this news.  She felt free because she now only had to live for herself, not for someone else.  It is disturbing to me how quickly Mrs. Mallard was able to not only get over her husband’s death, but to then find reasons to revel in it. She was so selfish that the sudden realization that her new freedom had just disappeared when her husband walked through the door alive had actually killed her.  Throughout the beginning of the story, she had tried to figure out, then repress these feelings of joy that she was having.  But because she had failed in this attempt, she allowed the feelings of freedom to overcome and overwhelm her.  “…She was drinking in a very elixir of life…”(Chopin 2).  When her husband came back, this elixir seemed to disappear, and without it, she could not survive.  What kind of freedom does Mrs. Mallard think that she is going to gain now that her husband is dead?(especially in 1892).   I can understand why Mrs. Mallard has heart disease, because there had to have been something wrong with her heart for her to take pleasure in another person’s peril. 

Ethan Frome Criticism Essay

 “The Two Faces of Mattie Silver” was written by Gary Scharnhorst in order to illuminate the idea that Mattie Silver may not have been as in love with Ethan as she seemed to be.  The author tries to show that Mattie Silver was really only a “conniving temptress” trying to remain in Starkfield by any means necessary.  Scharnhorst mentions that Mattie’s real goal was to be able to stay in Starkfield with Zeena until she was able to maybe marry Denis. The author attributes the fact that Mattie refused to ride with Denis because she was really flirting with him.  He makes this point because she waited until he had brought the horse out before running into the shadows.   When Ethan walks Mattie home from the dance, he puts his arm around her but “Within a page, however, Mattie has extricated herself and pressed ahead of Ethan…”(Scharnhorst 356).   The following day, Mattie is heard humming one of the songs from the dance while she is doing the dishes.  This shows that Mattie is still thinking about the dance with Denis.  Mattie has very limited options because she has no house-keeping skills and she has nowhere else to go.  The author points out that the times when Mattie draws closer to Ethan are the times when Mattie faces the problem of being sent away.  “As long as Mattie is confident that she is in Zeena’s favor and may share her home, she is indifferent to Ethan. Only after she learns of Zeena’s dissatisfaction with her and desire to send her away does she begin to look upon Ethan as her protector…”( Scharnhorst 356).   I feel that the author presented his argument very well.  He was able to composite many examples from the novel to support his theory.  I agree with the idea that the author presents.  I was beginning to have similar ideas while I was reading the novel.  Scharnhorst made references to many small details that I would not have otherwise connected to this idea that were important in convincing me that this could be more than just an assumption about Mattie. 

"The Yellow Wallpaper" response

I think that “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman was pretty irritating to me.   I have had similar experiences where some pattern or design has irritated me because it was either too confusing to follow, didn’t make any logical sense, or the colors were just horrendous.  I can see how the wallpaper could have driven the lady mad when she was forced to stay in the room for so long.  It seemed to me like her mind was trying to cope with a type of almost sensory deprivation by creating these illusions of the lady or the pattern moving.  Also, another thing that bothered me was that the lady knew that she wanted some company and that she felt that it might make her feel better, but her husband just would not listen to her because he was the doctor and he knew what was best for her.  Sensory deprivation has been used as a form of torture in the past (and maybe the present).  The lady did not have to become crazy if her husband had just listened to her and moved downstairs.  I found the description of the wallpaper very intriguing.  Now that I think about it, it seems amazing to me that the author even attempted to physically describe something so complex that even the character in the story could not even process the thought of it.  It seemed to me that each time the yellow wallpaper was described, it was described in a different way with some new detail or pattern appearing.  By the end of the story, I think that the lady ended up being more “sick” than she had started off at the beginning.  I’m not really sure what was wrong with her in the first place. I am still a little confused about the figure of the lady that was behind the pattern and the description of the lady creeping down the path.  I’m not sure if the lady is actually real or not.