I have read ‘The Story of an Hour’ by Kate Chopin and ‘The Interlopers’ by Saki, and have noticed they both have a few elements in common with one another. The main character in The Story of an Hour is Louise Mallards, a fragile hearted woman who has been just told her husband died. While reading, you would think Mrs. Mallards would grieve and mourn over her husband’s death but that’s one of the twists in the story. Mrs. Mallards does grieve at least a little and feel awful for her husband, but she also saw his death as an opportunity to do the stuff she always wanted to do.
Her husband’s death gave her freedom. The story continues about her fighting against the urge to feel happy since it’s not a very happy situation. Chopin’s doesn’t give out enough information about her husband to ever know if he was a nice guy or if he kept her trapped which made him a mystery at the end of the story. In the The Interlopers the story is about two men who are enemies who absolutely despise one another enough to try to kill each other.
The story takes place in a wood at night during a storm, I first thought maybe the two men and their men are hunting for a beast which would give them the upper hand or make whoever who caught it superior than the other, but as Saki started to add details as to why the men hated each other so much since they were both raised differently and were raised to hate each other. The story carries suspense to whether who was going to find who first and would they kill their neighbor on eyeshot or has this been all play in games.
Therefore, both stories have a great conflict that might make you wonder, ‘What would I do? ‘ ‘Would I feel the same way as Louise did when she found out her husband died? Would I see that as an opportunity for a fresh start? ‘ or ‘If I hated my neighbor enough, would I kill them on sight? Would I not discuss it over first before going into a war with aimed guns? ‘ Both stories have interesting plots and conflicts, both of their issues compared have nothing truly in common.
Louise is a newly-widow contemplating how she should feel about her husband’s death, Ulrich and Georg; the main characters of The Interlopers have no urge to fight other than the urge to stay patient till they find one another in the forest. Close to the end of The Story of an Hour, Mrs. Mallards decided she wants to be happy about her situation. Although she truly feels for her husband’s death she sees a free opportunity to do the stuff she’s always wanted to do. ‘There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. Chopin 11)
I suppose what the author was saying was, when Louise walked out the room she felt as if she was a new person; a new woman. This showed she saw a light of freedom and was going to take it, just like The Interlopers. Ulrich and Georg both found each other in the forest confronting one another until they were both crushed by a tree stuck, forced to be together. They were both in very poor condition and struggled to escape their selves so they could be the first to either kill the other or rub it in the others’ face but there was no use.
After they both gave up they had no choice but to face the fact they were stuck and there was no killing anyone that day. After a while they talked and at the end started to ask why were they really fighting anyway, they couldn’t come to any conclusion and called a treaty between one another promising not to kill the other when their men came to rescue them. In a way that’s sort of them seeing a new light too, they both have a chance to attain about one another. The tree sort of FORCED them to bond, to see they were just doing what they thought was right or what they were told.
And as most stories have a happy ending these two, didn’t exactly catch that memo. In the end of both stories, this is one of the BIGGEST elements both have in common. In The Story of an Hour as Louise walked down the stairs with the help of her sister Josephine, the door suddenly opened revealing her husband; Brently Mallard alive and well. Shocked to see him Louise cried in pain and when the doctors arrived, they said she had died of heart disease ending the story with, ‘the joy that kills'(Chopin 12). It’s ironic that the doctor says it was joy that killed her, but that has been a mix of situational and dramatic irony all in one.
The dramatic irony has been not only her feeling happy at the end about her husband’s death, but her DYING from seeing he was alive, the situational part of the story was the doctor saying she died from joy but what they didn’t know was, she died from the shock of seeing her ‘dead’ husband to actually be alive. And I believe that seeing her husband alive couldn’t have been the one concept that caused her death, I suppose it easily pushed her to that state because of her having a fragile heart already, in the beginning of the story she has been already feeling all types of emotion such as grief, happiness and so on.
In The Interlopers after Ulrich and Georg agreed to their terms to try to become friends and even shared a drink together with Ulrich’s flask. They both worked together to cry for help, until ‘There was silence again for some minutes, and then Ulrich gave a joyful cry'(Saki 180) ‘I can see figures coming through the wood. ‘They are following in the way I came down the hillside. ‘(Saki 190) they continued to cry for help laughing joyously, after they asked back and forward whether it was either’s Georg or Ulrich’s men coming to save them.
Ulrich replied “No. ” to Georg’s question whether it was either of them as his joy and happiness died down slowly turning into fear. The story ends with just ‘Who are they? “asked Georg quickly, straining his eyes to see what the other would gladly not have seen. “Wolves. “(Saki 200). The irony of the ending was, they both called all their fighting to an end and promised to show respect to one another, happy to hear what they THOUGHT were their men were a hungry pack of wolves.
I find both endings gloomy and a bit humorous since you expect the story to end in a pleasing way, but I like endings with a twist like that since it kind of sends you for a loop. I like how The Story of an Hour doesn’t exactly tell who what type of person Bently Mallard actually was or how he handled Mrs. Mallards death. I wonder whether he grieved terribly or if he felt the same way as she did seeing HER DEATH as a chance for a fresh start.
In The Interlopers I was a little disappointed since once their men come to find them and see they were mangled by wolves or if there were any remaining of them, their men won’t even know about them calling a truce and might just continue the war for the sake of Ulrich and Georg’s death. Or it could end in a situational ironic way too, they could see both leaders dead and call a truce themselves seeing what happened to them thinking it COULD happen to them too if they continued it on. Thus, they could take a big step and just call their war to an end.
