Mid-term test

103A Mid-Term Test

Part A. Short-answer questions. 40%

- Answer four questions only of the following seven questions. 10 points each.

- Answer in three to five sentences.

- Use a variety of sentence patterns.

1. What is Louis Mallard’s opinion of marriage? Indicate the paragraph that suggests it? Louise sees marriage as a very restricting thing. As written in the 12th paragraph (''There would be no one...''), Louise feels that marriage is a way to impose private will on someone else's; moreover, she compares it to a crime, and she thinks that no creature should have such rights on an other creature. Also, Louise thkins that marriage does not let you live for yourself; it forces you to live for someone, without thinking about your own desires.

2. Why does Louise Mallard suddenly stop crying? Indicate the place in the text?

3. How does she feel about her future as a widow? Cite the line in the text, using just the first few words, then a series of dots …?

Louise feels that her future will be very bright, that she will be free, and that no other person will be above her to control was she does. She has a very optimistic view of what is going to come for her. As a matter of fact, in the text, Kate Chopin wrote about Louise: ''There would be no one to live for...''

4. How does Louise’s sister and her friend, Richards, feel about the Mallard’s marriage.

5. Why is there so much description of what is outside the window when Louise is alone in her room?

6. Why did the author make the story so short? In my opinion, the author, Kate Chopin, made the story very short to emphasize on the intensity of the emotions shown in it; in fact, the author creates many moods in a short time. At first, Louise if affected by her husband's death; however, she realizes that this event might be good for her, but she ends up dying in her excitement. Thus, by making the story so short, Kate Chopin made the contrasts of moods much clearer and intense.

7. Explain how Louise can feel joy and sadness at the same time? In the first place, Louise was afflicted by her husband's death; she loved him sometimes, and she at least had to feel something for him if she married him. Nevertheless, this marriage did not let her be free; at the time ''The Story of an Hour'' was written, women were very submitted to their husband. This said, Louise was facing a very important internal conflict between affection and freedom.

Part B. Development question. 60%

Instructions:

- Write a text of three paragraphs writing about the use of irony in the story. The author uses it to great effect. Think about the message of the story, how the author uses irony to establish it, and what the author is telling us about marriage, relationships, and the way we judge people and ourselves.

- Include the thesis statement in the first paragraph.

- Paragraphs should have topic sentence as well.

- Use supporting details and textual evidence to defend your thesis statement.

- Include some of the sentence patterns (1/1a/1b/2/3) we discussed in class to give your writing variety.

- Write a maximum of 450 words and a minimum of 425 words. (Use the “statistics” feature in Word to check the number of words.)

Evaluation Criteria:

- Contents 20

- Coherence 20

- Style 20

- Vocabulary 20

- Spelling 10

- Grammar 10

In ''The Story of an Hour'', by Kate Chopin, irony takes a fundamental place. Actually, it is used throughout the story to tell us how life can take quick, unexpected turns. Furthermore, this is shown in two ways: the cause of Louise’s death, and the Mallard couple’s actual faith.

First of all, irony tells us the unpredictable nature of life: it shows that Louise died from her own will to live. As opposed to many cases where unfortunate events lead to death, the main character’s death is cause by happiness. When Louise learns that her husband passed away, she comes to a point where she realizes that this event will actually bring her freedom: her husband had a lot of control over her. However, already having a heart condition, the woman ends up getting a heart attack caused by her excitement. Ironically, Mr. Mallard’s death gave hope of a better future for Mrs. Mallard; she looked at her new life with optimism, and a strong desire to live to the fullest. To put it in Kate Chopin’s words, Louise ''breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.'' Sadly for the main character, all this thirst for life is what got her overexcited to the point of death; thus, life took a much unexpected course for Louise, and this is one way how irony is used to show the uncertainty of life.

Secondly, irony is used in ''The Story of an Hour'' to show us how life is uncertain because of the Mallard couple’s faith. In the end, Louise dies, while Mr. Mallard survives: this is the complete opposite of what is supposed to be happening in the beginning. Like it was mentioned above, Louise died indirectly because of Mr. Mallard’s supposed death. Nevertheless, it is told in the 19^th paragraph that Mr. Mallard was not involved in the accident that was supposed to have killed him, and that he did not die. At the end of the story, the setting is thus reversed: Mr. Mallard is alive and eventually, though implied in the text, that his wife has died. In real life, the odds of facing such misunderstandings are usually very small; however, Kate Chopin pointed out the fact that unlikely does not mean impossible. Because of that, not only there is an ironic situation, but a much unexpected one too; a sharp turn in the normal course of events that someone would expect from life. As ironic as it may seem, ''The Story of an Hour'' exemplifies a situation where the tables were turned, all of this at the reader’s surprise.