Comparing Awakening and the Story of an HourThe heroine, Mrs. P, exhibits some characteristics parallel to Louise Mallard in "Hour." Women of her time were limited by cultural conventions. However, Mrs. P (like Louise) begins to experience a new freedom of imagination, a joy of living, in the immediate absence of her husband. She realizes, through inner monologues, that she has been held back, that her situation in life cannot and will not offer her the kind of freedom to freely and openly explore the emotions that are so much a part of her that they are not part of it. by Léonce. Here is a first irony. Furthermore, the rhetoric used by Chopin is full of contradictions from the start. not only that, but there are so many contradictions of manner, style, point of view, and all this both internal and external of each of the characters. For example, Léonce “Pontellier wore glasses. He was a man of about forty, of average height and rather slender build; he leaned over a little. Her hair was brown and straight, parted on one side. His beard was neatly and carefully trimmed,” while his sons are described as “robust little fellows of four and five years.” This suggests that he is rather delicate and that his wife, who they probably take after their mother, is sturdy and strong, and can and will take him to anything. Another significant example comes in chapter xxix where his inner monologue speaks of his "understanding [as]...this monster made of beauty and brutality." Looking at the end of the work and going back (I read it that way so I was able to trace the steps that led to Edna's suicide), I saw for the first time an ambiguity between the apparent freedom she had achieved by transcending the bonds of ...... middle of paper ...... Another aspect of the story is that once Edna's awakening begins to take place, she finds herself on a roller coaster of emotions, from the manic exuberance of listening to music and the sounds of water, to her connection with Robert - it's as if all her senses are open Sometimes, however, she is really depressed, as if all the color that Chopin gives so beautifully in the descriptions of the other scenes has become dull and uninteresting. Then she is plunged into emotional turmoil when she reads Robert's letter to. Miss Reisz, as the latter plays Wagner Obviously, these kinds of emotions cannot be borne by a woman whose cultural structure does not allow the construction of her own to support the weight and number. She is overwhelmed. She must escape, and she does, for her current situation is powerfully reminiscent of the “joy that kills” in “Hour »..”