a waffle analysis

What I love about "The Story of an Hour" is how succinct it is but also how vivid it is. In this short story, Chopin covers a snapshot of Louise's life — one hour that changed her life both literally and emotionally. As a connection to the epiphanic approach in writing, this story's plot rises with the husband's death, reaches the epiphany when Louise realizes she's now free, and falls when she sees her husband in person and dies. Considering the reader-response perspective, Louise's death has many subsequent interpretations. Some may feel sympathetic for Louise, but others may feel sympathetic for Louise's husband, thinking that he did nothing wrong all this time yet comes home to witness his wife dead.  Interpretations are heavily dependent on our mindset, values, and experiences. What we are skilled in, from philosophy to science, also impacts our views. Coming back to the concise yet vivid scenes in "The Story of an Hour," I think this me...

Choices. We make them every day, but too often are they heart over head and centered around our own wishes. Each choice has its own implications, but those made with blind optimism against reality can yield grave consequences like Oedipus’ self-harm and saddening truths like Nea’s realization of Sourdi’s decision. As stated in Poetics , tragic figures are kings whose fate elicits “ feelings of pity and fear in the audience. ” Exploring the rationale behind the suffering, Aristotle wonders if we sympathize because we “ suffer a similar hamartia, ” fearing for our own lives. In a sense, that makes us tragic figures. Though we are not kings, Greek tragedies expose the potentialities of our blind self . Reading Oedipus not only provokes pity—as Oedipus realizes his life had been a lie—but it also compels the audience to question their own life. While we might not have a prophecy behind us, there are most certainly things we don’t know about ourselves, things hidden and varying in severi...

 "'I was trying to protect you,' I said through my tears. ''I was trying to save you!'" Nea's actions are often characterized as impulsive and immature. However, digging deep, the main source of her actions come from love. As she was an immigrant of a single-parent household with five children in a restaurant, her life wasn't easy. It certainly does not improve when her sister leaves her, "settling down" for security rather than love and shattering the dreams the sisters always discussed.  Nea's protective instincts that cause her to exaggerate the circumstances highlight her "immaturity". Maybe it's the hardship of dealing with change that causes this, but there seems to be a point where Nea "crosses the line" in which she thinks the worst of Sourdi's circumstances. This overprotective nature compels me to ponder upon my grandparents, specifically when they came to the US and lived with me for an extended ...