Description

Looking at the two short stories “ A Journey” by Kate band by Edith Wharton and the short story “ The story of an hour” by Kate Chopin, I be alive that both authors were showing in their own way that selfishness does not always get you what you want but it often gives you what you deserve. They write that with selfishness very often comes karma. In the first short story “A Journey,” the author makes it seem as if the main character whose name is not given, only married her husband for his wealth. Which in this day in age she would be looked at as a gold digger. Her selfish desires began to consume her. She was loyal to her husband but was upset that “they gave up their pretty house, stroing there wedding presents and new furniture, and went to Colorado (P1) Her husband was dying but she felt as if “life had a grudge agants her” (P1). She wanted to move back to New York She believed that she was too “impenetrable to be touched by the irrelevancies of disease”(P1) She became disgusted at the man she thought she had married, he was no longer able to provide for her like she thought she was entitled to. Due to her selfishness she has to take care of her husband while he is dying. In the second short story “The story of an hour” the main character named Louis Malarde’s selfish desires were shown when upon finding out that her husband had died, she fakes being grief stricken and then privately murmurs to herself repeatedly saying ‘’free ,free ,free! ’’(P2). She supposedly loved her husband but her reaction not long after being told the news of his death was very telling and showed a sense of relief. The author Kate Chacon made it seem as if Louis Malarde was waiting for the day for her husband to die so that she could be free from all the burdens of being a married woman in the 1800s. But because of her selfish desires of rejoicing in her husband's death coupled with seeing him at the door of the house, she ends up having a heart attack and dying. In both stories one of the common themes is selfish desires. Both women in the stories long for something more and to be unencumbered from their daily lives. In wanting to fulfill their own selfish desires, they actually lose everything and pay the ultimate price by being robbed of their lives.