Mauricio Cantu Diaz de Leon
Professor Buchholz
ENGL 1302
30 November, 2014
The Struggle for Freedom
In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, main character Louise Mallard suffers from heart problems, so she has to be told in a careful manner about the apparent death of her husband. She is told that the train her husband was traveling on has crashed. While she feels sad about the death of her husband, she also feels free of the restraints he placed on her. After meditating and fantasizing about all the years ahead of her, she is urged by her sister to come out of her room. She opens the door and walks down the stairs. The front door unexpectedly opens and her husband walks in. He was not in the train when the accident happened. Louise dies of a heart attack after watching her husband. The doctors then pronounce her death as being caused by happiness. In the story “Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, a couple is having drinks at a train station in Spain. The couple discuss an unspecified operation, which the woman is not sure if she wants to have. Although the exact nature of the operation is never mentioned, it can be assumed from the context that they are talking about an abortion. The man encourages the woman to have the abortion claiming it’s a very simple procedure. To avoid discussing the subject directly, the woman often changes the subject of the conversation to the hills located in the distance, which she claims look like white elephants. They also drink a lot of alcohol in order to avoid the subject. The man claims that having the operation will fix all of their problems, and it will allow them to be happy again. The woman tells him that she will have the operation as long as he still loves her. They continue arguing for a while until the woman makes the man promise to stop talking. Later the man asks the girl if she is feeling good. She claims she is feeling great and nothing is wrong with her. As these two stories vary greatly in their overall plot, a study in their similarities and differences make the reader understand the cost of sharing freedom between two different persons.
Both stories present a battle of freedoms between the main characters. In “The Story of an Hour” the death of her husband allows Louise Mallard a state of complete freedom, but only because her husband’s freedom is completely gone. Her freedom only exists in the absence of his. When she was married, her husband influenced all of her decisions. After his death, she is finally able to take all the decisions by herself. When her husband appears, she dies as a result of her freedom being taken away from her. In “Hills like White Elephants” the child is a symbol of the girl’s freedom, and the American doesn’t want to have it. His freedom consists of not having any children, while her freedom consists of being able to choose what to do with her own body. Their freedoms are in direct opposition from each other. Unlike in “The Story of an Hour” the winning freedom is not shown, but we can see the tension that the conflicting freedoms cause between the characters. The forcing of one will over the other, like in “The Story of an Hour” causes a big clash between the main characters.
In both stories, characters have to pay a high price for freedom. In “The Story of an Hour” freedom is brought to Louise in an unpleasant way; after her husband dies. Louise is able to find her freedom in the middle of a crisis. A freedom that is so powerful that ends up killing her when it’s suddenly taken away from her. This freedom makes her suddenly forget all her years of marriage. She doesn’t see the death of her husband happen, she sees her own rebirth. In the moment of most absolute tragedy for her and her family, she sees hope for her future life. In a moment where grief should be present, the happiness she feels is stronger. The cost she has to pay is what made her newly achieved freedom so monstrous and evil. In “Hills like White Elephants”, an