《一小时的故事》中的讽刺艺术
【摘要】长期以来，许多评论家认为凯特·肖邦的 《一小时的故事》是一篇女性主义作品。但本篇论文不仅从文章标题、语言的应用、主人公之间的关系，还从具体的情节以及作者自身所撰写的日记探索了故事中所表现出来的戏剧化的讽刺。肖邦尽管对女主人公持同情态度，但也对她的行为反应进行了一定的讽刺。总的说来，作者对女性所获得的独立自由的态度是矛盾的。
【关键词】讽刺；自由；婚姻；戏剧化
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” is regarded as one of the masterpieces of feminist literature. The story presents a repressed wife’s momentary discovery of what freedom from her husband might mean to her. She awakes to a new sense of herself when she learns of her husband’s death, only to collapse of a heart attack when she sees that he is alive.
Feminist critics explore the patriarchal social forces that have impeded women’s efforts to achieve full equality with men. They also explore women’s consciousness of struggling against men’s repression. However, such points of view are only one-sided. The significances implied in it are more profound and complex. Kate Chopin not only has sympathy with the heroine but also gives a poignant irony, which presents her contradictory attitude to independent freedom.
The title “The Story of an Hour” itself implies ironic meaning. It’s more obvious to see this when it’s first published with the title “The Dream of an Hour”. Life and death, freedom and repression, all included in Mrs. Mallard’s experience within an hour, yet can be read by readers only in a couple of minutes. The freedom that Mrs. Mallard envisions is just a dream that can never come true, for she finally dies of such “Monstrous joy” or “joy that kills”.
Irony is implied from the beginning of the story. Richards and Josephine take it for granted that Mrs. Mallard loves her husband too deeply to accept the fact of his death. So“ great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news…” The story presents a striking contrast between Mrs. Mallard’s real inner world and their cautiousness. It’s ironic that Mrs. Mallard’s ecstatic “self-assertion” is interpreted by Josephine as grief. Josephine implores “before the closed door with her lips with the keyhole”, not knowing that her sister actually has become a “goddess of victory”. Her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richards take the greatest care of her. But such concerns are subjective, which lack hearty communication and close attention to individual life. Their invisible forces create a cage decorated with “love” in which Mrs. Mallard has to live and received everything from outside passively.
Relationship among the characters in the story is not complex, but is endowed with particular significance in expanding the theme, because Chopin strengthens the absurdity of the relationship, which seems perfect apparently.In paragraph 13, the story describes Mr. Brently Mallard as this: He is a man who “has kind, tender hands”, and “he never looked save with love” upon his wife. Mrs. Mallard admits “yet she had loved him——sometimes”. Mr. Mallard’s only “crime” is coming from work one day, and yet he is the one who is bereaved at the end of the story, for reasons he will never
《一小时的故事》中的讽刺艺术
【摘要】长期以来，许多评论家认为凯特·肖邦的 《一小时的故事》是一篇女性主义作品。但本篇论文不仅从文章标题、语言的应用、主人公之间的关系，还从具体的情节以及作者自身所撰写的日记探索了故事中所表现出来的戏剧化的讽刺。肖邦尽管对女主人公持同情态度，但也对她的行为反应进行了一定的讽刺。总的说来，作者对女性所获得的独立自由的态度是矛盾的。
【关键词】讽刺；自由；婚姻；戏剧化
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” is regarded as one of the masterpieces of feminist literature. The story presents a repressed wife’s momentary discovery of what freedom from her husband might mean to her. She awakes to a new sense of herself when she learns of her husband’s death, only to collapse of a heart attack when she sees that he is alive.
Feminist critics explore the patriarchal social forces that have impeded women’s efforts to achieve full equality with men. They also explore women’s consciousness of struggling against men’s repression. However, such points of view are only one-sided. The significances implied in it are more profound and complex. Kate Chopin not only has sympathy with the heroine but also gives a poignant irony, which presents her contradictory attitude to independent freedom.
The title “The Story of an Hour” itself implies ironic meaning. It’s more obvious to see this when it’s first published with the title “The Dream of an Hour”. Life and death, freedom and repression, all included in Mrs. Mallard’s experience within an hour, yet can be read by readers only in a couple of minutes. The freedom that Mrs. Mallard envisions is just a dream that can never come true, for she finally dies of such “Monstrous joy” or “joy that kills”.
Irony is implied from the beginning of the story. Richards and Josephine take it for granted that Mrs. Mallard loves her husband too deeply to accept the fact of his death. So“ great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news…” The story presents a striking contrast between Mrs. Mallard’s real inner world and their cautiousness. It’s ironic that Mrs. Mallard’s ecstatic “self-assertion” is interpreted by Josephine as grief. Josephine implores “before the closed door with her lips with the keyhole”, not knowing that her sister actually has become a “goddess of victory”. Her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richards take the greatest care of her. But such concerns are subjective, which lack hearty communication and close attention to individual life. Their invisible forces create a cage decorated with “love” in which Mrs. Mallard has to live and received everything from outside passively.
Relationship among the characters in the story is not complex, but is endowed with particular significance in expanding the theme, because Chopin strengthens the absurdity of the relationship, which seems perfect apparently.In paragraph 13, the story describes Mr. Brently Mallard as this: He is a man who “has kind, tender hands”, and “he never looked save with love” upon his wife. Mrs. Mallard admits “yet she had loved him——sometimes”. Mr. Mallard’s only “crime” is coming from work one day, and yet he is the one who is bereaved at the end of the story, for reasons he will never