In the story, “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs. Mallard learns of her husband’s death from her sister Josephine. She is so distraught with the news, that she retreats to her bedroom to be alone. While in her room, she goes through several emotions: first, she is exhausted and allows herself to relax, then, she gets depressed by the news of her husband’s death, and finally, she is relieved
The reason to Conrad’s suicide attempt is his mom's acute coldness towards him shows her ultimate despise of Conrad because she blames him for not dying instead of her favorite first born son. After his suicide, Conrad is asked to see a psychiatrist by his father. Cal tries to bring the family back together, Beth, Conrad and himself, but fails to do so. Beth never once visited Conrad in the hospital and barely checks up on him to see if he was asleep. She began to shut herself from her husband and most importantly, her son.
Loss can be felt through death as well as someone leaving your life. Harry experiences this loss through Miss Spencer leaving the town. Overall, this bildungsroman shows the concept of grief and loss and ways to cope through various situations. The death of Harry’s mother in the novel explores the loss and guilt the Hodby’s have to endure and ways in which they manage to live without a mother in their family. Harry’s father is definitely most affected by the death of his wife.
Virginia suffered from tuberculosis and died in 1847, two years prior to the writing of Poe’s poem; her death caused Poe to enter a deep depression. Just as John Cowper Powys comments in Marie Rose Napierkowsk’s book, Poetry for Students, “Poe expresses ‘a certain dark, willful melancholy,’ a cold mood that Poe ‘must surely himself have known.’ Powys's suggestion may spring from Poe's experience with loss, and in particular the death of his child bride, Virginia Clemm” (Powys as qtd Napierkowski 19). In the poem the narrator mentions, “she was a child” and “-my life and my bride,” which refers to Virginia as “his child bride,” since Poe married her when she was thirteen years old. (Poe 7-39). As Powys describes it, the mood of Poe’s poem is lamenting the death of his wife, Virginia.
Mr. Richards was in the newspaper office when he heard the news of the railroad disaster. Josephine started to break the news gently to her sister Mrs. Mallard. After Mrs. Mallard heard the news of her husband’s death; she didn’t react the way you think that she would. Instead of her having that paralyzed inability to accept his death she just wept. The grief she was feeling overcame her and she went to her room to be alone.
On my second interview with my grandmother I had the honor of reading her a poem Nurse and Peron (Touhy, Jett, 2010, p.350). While reading to my 97 year old grandmother I happened to look over at her. I felt and saw a sense of sadness. Even though my grandmother never personally experienced Alzheimer's disease, she had close friends that had succumb to the illness. Growing up I remember my grandfather passing away at the young age of 60, although he did not pass from Alzheimer's disease, he did battle with a chronic illness that left him debilitated.
He watched his mother change everyday and go through stages of her depression. He was so afraid that his mother would die and he felt responsible for his mothers illness. His mother always talked about death and as if it were her last day so he thought that she would die soon. Gates developed certain “ rituals” to help his mother. The reader can conclude that Gates really loved his mother and admired her.
The Story of an Hour is about a woman with a fragile heart, who is carefully informed of her husband Brently Mallard's death due to a railroad accident. As one reads the story, it is simple to believe that Mrs. Mallard weeps at the news of her husband’s death, for now she is a young widow who may have been deeply in love. However, there is much more depth and there are layers to the story that spark the question of how well one can truly know what another feels if one only knows a short part of the story. Mrs. Mallard maintains a façade of loving her husband, which is also perpetuated by the world view that a married couple loves each other. She is oppressed by her husband, whose “face…had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead”.
Just as she used time of day in The Violets, she uses seasons to symbolise a time in her life. Autumn symbolises her middle age. In this stanza she paints a grim picture of her innocence lost as she has become aware of age and death by saying “we stand, two friends of middle age by your parents’ grave in silence among the avenues of the dead.” The reason she has chosen to set this part of the poem at the grave of her friend’s parents because of her love for her own parents, and she deeply empathises with her friend’s loss. It is typical in her poetry that, when the present becomes too miserable, Harwood will transcend the current time and return to a happier memory. However in this poem she cannot find a happier memory and recalls a dream instead, “I dreamed once long ago, that we walked among day-bright flowers.” Her use of positive imagery such as the “day-bright flowers” lightens the mood and achieves the same effect of the memories in The Violets, as she stops thinking of death and causes the reader to forget the unhappy nature of the initial memory and be emotionally moved by the warmth of the following memory where she is “secure in my father’s arms.” In her poems The Violets, Father and Child and At Mornington Gwen Harwood demonstrates through her use of memories, her loss of innocence, the love for her parents and how quickly time moves.
Mallard” is told by her sister, that her husband has been killed in a train accident. Initially, she is filled with sorrow and disbelief. However, after her tears dry and the days events begin to settle, Mallard begins to imagine what her life will be like without her husband. A calming relief begins to fill her thoughts. She would no longer have to live for him nor anyone else, only herself.