Final Paper the Story of an Hour and the Secret Life of Walter Mitty

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Final Paper The Story of an Hour and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty James R. Marquis ENG125: Introduction to Literature (AFG1213A) Amy Hartmann 1 May 2012 The Story of an Hour and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty What Is a Prison Some Say It Is When a Person Who Commits a Crime against society and to others it might be a marriage that has gone bad. This will be sorted out when comparing two short stories depicting two people a man and a woman who have entered in a marriage contract that has gone bad and the feeling of being placed within a prison or confinement has trapped them. The secret life of Walter Mitty and The Story of an Hour are based on a man Mr. Walter Mitty and a woman Mrs. Louise Mallard believe they have become a prisoner within their marriages. They have succumb to society standards of their era that divorce was not an option because all marriages have issues and the wedding vows need to be honored, “Until Death due us Part”. Walter Mitty and Louise Mallard feel the only way either one of them can become free from there prison of a marriage is not by running away but through death and they are willing to go as far as it takes. To deliver them from a fate that is worse than death a lifetime of unhappiness. In this time era divorce was not common and many marriages took the vows serious “Honor and Obey, for Better or Worst and Death until we depart” are traditional vows and too most are sacred. “In a world where women had few economic opportunities, where men in the marriage controlled most of the economic resources and where custody was often granted -- especially before the mid-19th century -- exclusively to the father, liberalizing divorce laws was an essential plank in the women's rights platform”(Lewis, 1999). The author Kate Chopin of “The Story of an Hour” (Clugston, 2010), illustrated her narrative by using the third

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