Mrs Mallard from Story of an Hour and the Wife from Cat...

Compare, contrast and analyze: Mrs. Mallard (Story of an Hour) and the wife (Cat in the Rain) The heroine of Kate Chopins Story of an Hour and unnamed wife of Ernest Hemingways Cat in the Rain seem to be motivated by completely different forces. Mrs. Mallard desires a wider and more expansive life than the one she currently possesses. She is frustrated by the limits of her domesticity. She feels a sense of freedom and relief at the prospect of her husbands death rather than sorrow. The unnamed wife of Cat in the Rain projects her desire to have a more stable and conventional life onto a cat she wants to rescue from the rain. She fantasizes about holding it and letting it purr, versus the glamorous life traveling around Italy she is currently leading. Both stories hinge on themes of incomprehension. The family and friends of Mrs. Mallard clearly do not understand her frustration with her life. They are careful not to reveal that her husband has been accidentally killed in a railway ac cident at first, for fear of the shock stopping her weak heart. Mrs. Mallard seems to bear this news well ironically, the reader knows, because of the frustrations she feels about the social constraints that inhibit her movement. She said it over and over under the breath: free, free, free! Because society cannot conceive of a woman not wanting to be a wife, Mrs. Mallard is consistently misinterpreted by the friends and family around her. When it turns out that her husband