Travis 1

Heidi Travis

Dr. Calcaterra

Critical Methods

24 February 2014

The Parallel Curse:

The Mirrored Lives and Deaths of Mrs. Mallard and the Lady of Shalott

The Story of an Hour's Mrs. Mallard, and The Lady of Shalott's Lady suffer the same

curse. Mrs. Mallard and the Lady are anachronisms manifesting in times when the ruling

patriarchy defines women's roles; therefore, their claims to autonomy are illusions that result in

immediate obscurity represented by death. Though published decades apart,1 both illustrate the

limitations of women's roles in their time and expose the patriarchy as a prison to women. This

theme is recurrent in literature throughout the 19th century but, because our own language has

evolved to include feminist ideologies, it is now more greatly understood and appreciated in

modern study.

From the very first line, Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble,

great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death (171),

the protagonist of Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour, is irrevocably linked to her husband,

Brently Mallard, and denied individuality. Only when she goes behind closed doors and

experiences her moment of epiphany and empowerment, does the reader learn from Josephine,

her sister, that Mrs. Mallard's name is Louise (173). Significantly, Chopin's narrator only

1 The Story of an Hour was published in 1894. (http://www.katechopin.org/the-story-of-an-hour.shtml)

The Lady of Shalott was first published in 1832 with a revised edition subsequently released in 1842.

(www.poetryfoundation.org.)
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refers to the protagonist as she throughout the rest of the story. She is a woman stripped of

identity.

Likewise, in Alfred Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott, the reader knows the title

character only by her place of imprisonment - the island of Shalott. The speaker refers to her as

Lady throughout the poem and nothing more. In her article Gender Politics in Alfred, Lord

Tennyson's Lady of Shalott, Ellen Stockstill notes that, The Lady's anonymity to the outside

world also emphasizes her 'overlooked' position:

But who hath seen her wave her hand?

Or at the casement seen her stand?

Or is she known in all the land,

The Lady of Shalott? (Tennyson 24-27)

Hidden inside phallic architecture, the lady is invisible to the outside world. (14). The

patriarchal structure of the tower defines the Lady and she does not exist beyond its walls. In the

same way, Mrs. Mallard's role of wife is a construct of a patriarchal society and limits her

freedom making it prison of its own.

Similarly, in the sentence There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy

armchair Chopin presents the reader with a microcosm of Mrs. Mallard's condition (171). The

open window is a device used to demonstrate how Mrs. Mallard has become a spectator of life,

rather than a participant. The comfortable, roomy chair is already facing the open window

(171). The arrangement is in place; this is not the first time that she has settled into the chair to

gaze out into the world beyond her. The chair itself denotes complacency; she has resigned

herself to a pleasant prison, duty bound to her role as wife. However, as the realization hits that
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she is widowed, she is gripped with a surge of self-assertion; she sees a long procession of

years to come that...belong to her absolutely (172). As Mrs. Mallard takes command of herself,

the scope of her world begins to shift beyond the boundaries of wife and sister.

Consequently, when Josephine calls to her, Mrs. Mallard refuses her and is said to be drinking

in the very elixir of life through the open window (173). Mrs. Mallard longs for the life she

glimpses and, at last, it seems as though it is finally within her grasp. But like any window, Mrs.

Mallards's provides a limited view. Her vision of freedom is limited in truth when obscured by

her prison; therefore, it is an illusion.

The parallel to Tennyson's Lady is imprisonment. The walls of the tower literally confine

the Lady while an ambiguous curse forces her to weave a tapestry of the sights reflected by a

mirror that faces an open window. Day after day, her mirror reflects the images of travelers

passing on their way to Camelot. She yearns to join them but the curse forbids it and so the Lady

keeps to her purpose and weaves on (64-72). The Lady's mirror is problematic in that it can only

reflect images, offering mere fragments and facsimiles of truth. Shadows of the world appear

through it - distortions of reality (48). The Lady's prison tower also obscures her vision and so

she sees mere illusions - reflections of her own desire.

Mrs. Mallard and the Lady wish to break from these social bindings of duty and the roles

they must play. From their isolation, they glimpse through windows and mirrors to see a vision

of a world they wish to engage. The claustrophobic world Mrs. Mallard inhabits fades into

background as she gazes beyond the open square to spy the tops of trees...aquiver with new

spring life. There is a delicious breath of rain...in the air and a distant song seems to call to

her. (171) The Lady, too, hears Sir Lancelot singing Tirra lirra while passing by her tower
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window while en route to Camelot. The jaunty tune captures the Lady's attention, drawing her

away from her post (107-110). All of these images represent a promise of new life that lure Mrs.

Mallard and the Lady. The world appears to open up to them.

The illusion of freedom is powerful and enticing. Their desire goes against their ascribed

purpose but it takes root and they each take a bold step towards that end. The Lady abandons her

tower; Mrs. Mallard frees mental ties to the institution of marriage. It is these decisive actions

that set the course towards their demise.

Interestingly, the details of Mrs. Mallard's death and the Lady's death are also parallel.

Both women descend from an upper room, an action foreshadowing a symbolic fall from social

grace. The Lady descends from the tower on the island of Shalott and heads for the river leading

to Camelot, a place representing her vision of freedom. She climbs into a boat and floats down

the river farther and farther from the place of her imprisonment, effectively distancing herself

from her designated purpose and identity. She dies on the river before reaching Camelot (109-

153). Mrs. Mallard descends the stairs invigorated and empowered by the illusionary promise of

an autonomous life. She appears a goddess of Victory with a feverish triumph in her eyes

(173). The stark reality of her situation greets her at the bottom of the stairs in the form of Mr.

Brently Mallard. He, in fact, did not die and in that instant Mrs. Mallard is forced to

put herself aside and resume her role as wife. But she is already a changed woman and can

no longer recant the change she feels inside. She has already convinced herself that there will be

no one to live for her and no powerful will bending hers. She is free! Body and soul free

(172). Yet there is no place for a free woman in that world. There is no language within the

reality of the patriarchal structure to support or give meaning to what Mrs. Mallard has become;
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and therefore, she serves no purpose and becomes obsolete. Mark Cunningham claims in his

article, The Autonomous Female Self and the Death of Louise Mallard in Kate Chopin's 'Story

of an Hour' :

...once Louise discovers or begins to formulate an autonomous self, once she decides

that she will no longer tolerate her will being bent, that she will control her life fully,

there is no place for her in male-dominated society. Since there is no other society in

which she may find a place, when Louise ceases to exist in relation to the patriarchal

society around her, she ceases to exist at all(4).

He goes on to say, Should she break free of patriarchal definitions (wife, widow, lover) in her

own mind, she will find no other social system, to accept her: women have been unable to

create a system of their own. The female self will have gained autonomy only to find that she

has no life to lead (6). Thus, Mrs. Mallard's quest for autonomy results in death, a symbolic

representation of the futility of her plight. At a loss for reasonable cause of death by their

estimations, the doctors can only report that Mrs. Mallard has died of heart disease of joy that

kills (173). That is all their language can offer, thus Mrs. Mallard is assimilated back into the

patriarchal culture for a final dismissal.

Just as the inescapable curse imprisons Tennyson's Lady into the symbolic patriarchal

construct of the tower, Mrs. Mallard succumbs to the curse of the societal expectations of female

identity. By courting illusions, both Mrs. Mallard and the Lady negate their established roles,

alienate themselves from the society that bore them, and consequently cease to exist. Yet, over

a century later, their stories are still told and continue to be compelling, and perhaps, better

understood. These personages are more relevant to the social structures of our time. Women are
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not so limited in their choice of lifestyle or the roles they may play in a society. Furthermore,

Chopin and Tennyson create a window into women's history and, though feminism has come a

long way, the themes of isolation, separation and being irrevocably confined still resonate with

readers today. By modern standards, Mrs. Mallard and the Lady are no longer anachronisms and

in this way, have achieved a kind resurrection and live on.

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Works Cited

Chopin, Kate. The Story of an Hour. The Awakening and Selected Short Fiction. 2003.

Ed. George Stade. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2005. 171-173. Print.

Tennyson, Alfred. The Lady of Shalott. 1842. The Poetry Foundation. N.p., n.d.Web. 31

January 2014. www.poetryfoundation.org.

Cunningham, Mark. The Autonomous Female Self And The Death of Louise Mallard in Kate

Chopin's Story of an Hour. English Language Notes 42.1 (2004): 48-55. Humanities

Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 31 Jan. 2014.

Stockstill, Ellen J.1. Gender Politics in Alfred Lord Tennyson's THE LADY OF SHALOTT.

Explicator 70.1 (2012): 13-16 Humanities Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 31 Jan. 2014.