In ‘The Woman’s Rose’ the ‘rose’ was the symbol of love, purity, beauty, peace, lust and romance. It was mentioned throughout the story. The turning point in the story was when the girl was entering romance for the first time, and was experiencing womanhood for the first time. At this point the girl had the dominance “I liked them to ask me to marry them, and to say, No. I despised them.” The girl shows a harsh attitude towards the men who proposed to her. Schreiner uses a capital ‘N’ for the ‘No’ and a simple sentence to add the bitterness and show that the girl did not like how women were proposed to without being in love. In ‘The Necklace’ Madame Loisel had dreamed to be a women of a higher status she was so obsessed with the fact, that she thought she should have been rich all her life, that one night of being attractive and wealthy was enough for her, “… the prettiest room there, elegant, graceful, radiant and wonderfully happy.” At this pint Madame Loisel felt loved. That night she was in love but not with her husband, but with the moment of attention from other people.
In the pre-twentieth century, during the Victorian times, it was important for women to be high up on the social hierarchy and socially interactive. This was stated more in ‘the Necklace’ because the only reason she wanted to be attractive and wealthy was so that she could receive the respect and honour of being higher up in the social hierarchy. She also felt ashamed that she was underprivileged, but when she went to Madame Forestier’s even though she was borrowing she was still meticulous about what she wanted, “have you got anything else?” Madame Loisel seemed to be high and mighty, even though she was at such a low status. Fashion was extremely important to her, when they had to work hard for repaying the people Madame Loisel had become less demanding about wanting, because her dream was satisfied. In ‘The Woman’s Rose’ the men worshiped the other woman “…these men, shut off from the world, should pour at the feet…” this gives authority; she was untouchable, which enforced the levels of hierarchy. The pre-twentieth century fashion and community is much different to how it is now. Like when the narrator of ‘The Woman’s Rose’ the men worshipped the other woman “…these men, shut off from the world, should pour at the feet…” this gives her authority; she was untouchable, which enforced the levels of hierarchy. The pre-twentieth century fashion and community is much different to how it is now. Like when the narrator of ‘The Woman’s Rose’ compliments the other women “…great white arms…” in the twentieth century this would be taken as an insult, about being over weight.
All three writers use symbolism in their stories, which is important because the symbolism affects the main women in the story. In ‘The Woman’s Rose’ the girl had come; spring gives sense of romance, kindness, friendship and beauty. The ‘spring’ may have been a metaphor for the point of change in her life. The use of the word spring similarly used in ‘The Story of an Hour’ as Louise got excited and started to think about the ‘spring’ and how much fun she would have. In both stories the use of ‘spring’ is also used to symbolise a new life, or a new start. In ‘The Necklace’ even though there was no mention of spring there was still a similarity between all three stories because there is an element of change to each women’s life in each story. But the difference is that in ‘The Necklace’ the change is not about a relationship, and does not have much to do with spring or romance/love. The symbol used in ‘The Necklace’ is the necklace itself, which in the story symbolises wealth, beauty and popularity. When the necklace is lost it seems as if Madame Loisel has lost it all, that if she went to the party without the necklace she may not have been as happy as she was. The use of ‘spring’ by Chopin and Schreiner helps to start building up the anticipation of the story. The dichotomy of winter is also used fairly regularly because it symbolises darkness, pain and cold, which is used to show the women’s pain and loneliness. In ‘The Woman’s Rose’ the narrator seems lonely and lacking in friendship “I would have given all their compliments if she would one smile at me as she smiled at them…” this shows that by just one smile she would have felt that she has a friend that cares. We can see that she is extremely appreciative when the women gives her a rose as a symbol of friendship, “You are so beautiful to me…” it shows how appreciative she is instead of saying you are so kind to me.”
The anticipation of the stories is also built up because of the pace of them. In ‘The Story of an Hour’ the pace of the story is fast because it is short but also because it is made up of mainly simple sentences, even though a few complex sentences are used in the story. “The Woman’s Rose” is a fairly flowing story because of Schreiner’s use of semi-colons keeps the complex sentences smooth rather than having lots of pauses. But towards the end of her stories she uses hyphens, which adds pauses to emphasize what is being said. Olive Schreiner’s uses many complex sentences, which are kept to the point, by her use of punctuation. Aside from the use of punctuation and sentences, the build up of hope and surprise is also created by the actual context of the stories. In ‘The Story of an Hour’ the reader has no idea that Louise Mallard’s husband will come home she would die. This surprise makes the reader sympathise with Louise as she was so happy and independent and also because throughout the story the reader had become intimate and understanding with he character. In ‘The Necklace’ the actuality that Madame Loisel had lost the Necklace was a surprise, but then there was a build up of tension as the readers wanted to know what Madame Forestier’s reaction would be and how would Madame Loisel pay back the money she had borrowed. Also the reader is kept in suspense about how Madame Loisel would survive being poorer than she was before the incident. In ‘The Woman’s Rose’ the surprise is when the woman is given the rose for friendship, which is a surprise because they had never spoken before that, “she and I never spoke to each other.” This shows that it was also a surprise to the narrator when she received the flower. After she is given the rose we want to know what the relationship between the two women will be.
To create hope and surprise and to show the experiences of the women the authors also use different narrative techniques. In ‘The Story of an Hour’ the narrative viewpoint is third person, even though first person narrative helps the reader understand the character like in ‘The Woman’s Rose’ where the narrator is not named so it makes the reader think that Olive Schreiner is narrating, making the reader sympathise and relate top her as the character. In ‘The Necklace’ the narrative viewpoint is in the third person, which makes us understand the story from the narrator’s point of view not the characters.
All three stories are structured to build up in the end, which is a pretty high climax, although in ‘The Necklace’ there are two climaxes: once where the necklace and the bigger climax when she finds out what the necklace is really worth. In ‘The Story of an Hour’ the idea of death is hinted in the beginning, “knowing that Mrs Mallard is afflicted with a heart trouble” this was used as the first line of the story which hints that something will happen to d with her heart problems. But it does not appeal to the readers easily so the arrival of Brently Mallard and the death of Louise Mallard is a huge climax. In ‘The Woman’s Rose when the narrator is given the flower this is a huge climax because throughout the poem there have been symbolisms connected with the rose and it has been used in different ways but when she is given the rose it is a climax because both women have never spoken to each other before.
In ‘The Necklace’ the similes and metaphors are used to describe the amount of poverty or the amount of wealth “…look like a church mouse” this shows that without the things the women is not wealthy enough whereas if there is enough wealth much brighter metaphors are used “…floating on a cloud of happiness” which shows thar because if the wealth Madame Loisel thought it was heavenly. The effect this has on the story is to emphasize how she really feels at the moment. In ‘The Story of an Hour’ the imagery is pretty negative “… tender hands folded in death” this shows that Louise Mallard was fairly upset when she first found out her husband was dead, the outcome of this is to help us become more intimate towards the character and feel how troubled she is.
All three stories are fairly flowing “The Story of an Hour’ is made up of a lot of simple sentences which are good because they keep to the point. ‘The Woman’s Rose’ and ‘The Necklace’ are both made up of a mixture of sentences but mainly complex sentences, although these flow because of the use of Maupassant and Schreiner’s use of punctuation.
The use of punctuation by Maupassant and Schreiner keeps the pace of the stories flowing. The use of punctuation by Kate Chopin is simple which is why her story is kept short and simple compared to the others.
Olive Schreiner uses a lot of sound devices compared to the other two such as assonance “ e.g.” and alliteration “ e.g.”; she uses it fairly often, which is usually when she is describing something o help us understand the emotion of the characters. Kate Chopin uses a few sound devices, which are pretty soft and subtle, “e.g.”. The sound devices used by Maupassant in ‘The Necklace’ are also used to emphasize what is being said so the reader pays more attention to it.
All three stories have their similarities. They are all in one way about a women gaining a moment of happiness that makes them feel independent and unlike what they are portrayed to be like in the Victorian times they become the opposite of that for some time in the story. Most of the similarities are between ‘The Story of an Hour and ‘The Woman’s Rose’ which is mainly because they both have points about hope coming related to spring women being independent and happy/looking forward to their futures. The fact that men and women’s marriages are base on the need of a husband/wife and not a desire are mentioned in both the stories. ‘The Necklace’ has a different meaning to the story where the other two are about women wanting and gaining independence, ‘The Necklace’ is about a women wanting more than a husband but it may also be that her way of gaining independence is by being wealthy. Another similarity between ‘The Women’s Rose’ and ‘The Story of an Hour’ is that both stories contain information which is similar to what happened in the author’s own life. For example in ‘the Story of an Hour’ Louise Mallard’s husband died in a rail accident, which is the same way her own father died. And in ‘The Woman’s Rose’ the story is about the values and difficulties of women’s friendship which at the time were “of central importance to Olive Schreiner”. Even though ‘The Story of an Hour’ and ‘The Woman’s Rose’ were pretty similar, the major difference was that contrasting viewpoints of the narrator’s as they are written in first and third person. The third person was less effective on the reader than it was from a first person narrative viewpoint. All three stories helped us readers understand the difficulties of women during the Victorian times, and the struggle they had to g through to achiev something they had wanted for a long time.
