The Sound of Silence: The Treatment of Spousal Death in Chopin's "The Story Of An Hour" and Celal's "Melahat Hanım's Orderly Life"

Abstract

Both “The Story of an Hour” (1894) and “Melahat Hanım’ın Düzenli Yaşamı” (“Melahat Hanim’s Orderly Life”) (1999) take an intimate look at widows directly following the deaths of their spouses. While Kate Chopins’s story reveals the inner turmoil of its protagonist through insinuations regarding the taxing quality of her marriage, it also focuses on figurative implications of life after this death through imagery contemplated outside a window. Peride Celal’s story, on the other hand, similarly looks back on a challenging marriage, yet this time through the inside of the house, by focusing on the late husband’s possessions. Both characters hesitatingly embrace the prospect of a new life which promises escape from the social role of a wife. Unfortunately, the characters share the same fate of not being allowed to do so as they both die at the end of the stories, and in similar circumstances. This paper wishes to explore the lingering presence of the husbands by looking at motifs and imagery inside and outside the confines of the house which restricts the promised liberty of the two women.