I. READINESS
a. MOTIVATION: [Imagine a time when women were caught between
fighting for their rights and pleasing their husbands, where they wanted
to be free of oppression, but were still forced into corsets everyday.
Imagine the contradiction and the uncertainty that women must have faced.
Well, today we are going to be looking a bit further into our feminism
topic, but we will be dealing with a completely different time period
than before. We are going a bit earlier now to the Victorian Period in
American literature, an interesting time for women’s lib and the
real beginning of their change in history.]
b. TAPPING AND BUILDING BACKGROUND: [We will first take
a look at a text I have here for you before looking at the website text.
The author we are looking at today is Kate Chopin (1850-1904). She was
of Irish Catholic heritage and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. It is said
that most of her strength came from her strong-willed grandmother, but
she was still a relatively “rebellious” young woman for her
time. She attended the St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart, where she
became very well read in European and other world authors. By the time
she graduated, she really began to see the “tension between individual
and erotic inclination and the constraints placed on desire – especially
on women’s sexual desire – by traditional social mores.”
She saw that women were beginning to challenge the patriarchal rules that
sought to confine them to well-defined social and vocational domains but
to control their inner life as well. She married Oscar Chopin at the age
of 19 and moved to New Orleans. His sudden death from swamp fever in 1883
left her to raise six children alone in both Cajun and Creole French cultures
of the South. Chopin is known for writing on impulse, and her greatest
success came just five years before her death (The Awakening). Her major
themes are based on the sensual and sexual coming to consciousness of
women, and such themes aroused much hostility and outcry among critics
of the time, especially for a woman author. We are going to take a look
at such themes today as they apply to another rather well known short
story of hers, Story of an Hour. We are going to take what we
learned in the last couple lessons about feminism and attempt to apply
it to her writing today.]
c. CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT/VOCABULARY: [There are four main vocabulary
words that I would like us to look at before beginning the story: aquiver,
elusive, tumultuously, and importunities. Look at the text and find the
context of the first word. It says "the tops of the trees were aquiver
with new life": What were they doing? What did they look like? Who
can give me a guess of what aquiver might signify here? (Shaking,
shivering, maybe moving somehow.) Right. They were alive with new
life, maybe even caused by a slight spring breeze. The next word is elusive:
"There was something coming toward her, and she did not know what
it was": It eluded her, and "she could not name it". I
want you to turn to your partner and give a definition of what you think
the word elusive means. (unrecognizable, unable to be captured.) Yes,
elusive can mean hard to comprehend or define, and it can also mean unable
to be grasped. Now find tumultuously. Louise seems to be getting a bit
more excited as this "thing" comes at her through the window,
"causing her breath to quicken and her chest to rise and fall tumultuously":
Do you think you would be so excited or unrestrained after hearing the
news of your loved one's death? The last word is importunities. So her
sister has been sitting at the door pleading to get inside, begging Louise
to open it. What could importunities mean? (Begging or pleading.)]
d. PURPOSE-FOR-READING: [Today our main purpose is to
read for literary experience and to gain a better understanding of feminist
criticism. After we finish reading and discussing this story, you should
be able to fill out the venn diagram that will compare/contrast the characters
of Mrs. Mallard and Jig in the short stories that we have read thus far.]
II./III. DISCUSSION STRATEGY/READING(narrative): [We
are going to use a technique called Think Aloud that will hopefully help
us gain a better understanding of the story as we read through it. We
will be alternating reading and discussing as we go along. So, I want
you to start by reading the first two small paragraphs to yourself and
then give me a thumb up when you are finished.]
(Students will read the first two paragraphs.)
[Now it should be relatively apparent, but who can tell me what the initial
problem of the story might be? (That her husband died.) Ok, so
that is obviously the conflict of the story – her husband passed
away suddenly. Can anyone make a guess as to what is going to happen,
even though we’ve only read the first couple paragraphs? (Her
friends will not be able to tell her? Mrs. Mallard might react very shocked
and maybe do something desperate like take her own life? Mrs. Mallard
might be accustomed to people dying if she is already old herself?)
Well, let’s read on a bit and see if we can see exactly how Mrs.
Mallard will take the news. I want a volunteer to read aloud the next
section while we take pauses to discuss.]
“She did not hear the story as many women have heard the
same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance.
[What does this suggest about the expected or usual reaction from news
of a death? How was she supposed to act?] She
wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When
the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She
would have no one follow her." [How was her acceptance
of the news different? Can you picture her reaction? What might it suggest
about her character? I want you to quick turn to your partner and make
another prediction about what her reaction says about Mrs. Mallard, if
it says anything at all…if you are unsure, just make a guess.]
"There stood, facing the open window,
a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical
exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul."
[Have you every felt so emotionally drained that it affects your physical
self as well? I want you just to picture her body when Chopin mentions
the words “sank,” “physical
exhaustion,” “haunted”, and
“into her soul.”]
"She could see in the open square before her
house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life.
[What is she starting to do now? What is she noticing?] The
delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler
was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing
reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves."
"There were patches of blue sky showing
here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the
other in the west facing her window.” [How does
this section of the story compare with the part where the news is broken?
Describe the mood (It seems a bit less sad maybe. She is no longer
thinking about his death, and she is starting to notice happier things
going on outside.) So what might that mean for the rest of the story?
Tell your neighbor an update of your prediction. I want another volunteer
to read the next section.]
"She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the
chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and
shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in
its dreams." [Picture what she must
look like and how she must be feeling – “like
a child who has cried itself to sleep” – it
kind of relates back to the physical exhaustion that comes with such powerful
emotion.]
"She was young, with a fair, calm face,
whose lines bespoke repression [Repression?] and
even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose
gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It
was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent
thought."
So she has cried all of her tears and is now just staring out the window,
but not simply staring – the writing seems to suggest an underlying
occurrence in her thoughts, almost like something is going to happen.
For the next section, I would like you all to go back to reading silently,
but I want you to contemplate what is happening as you read through it.
Try to picture Louise’s reaction. Think about how she might be feeling.
Underline any parts of the text that stand out to you or that say something
about why she is feeling the way that she is at this particular moment.
Give me a thumbs up when you have reached the section that ends with “It
was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.”
“There was something coming to her and she was waiting for
it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive
to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her
through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air." [What
might she be referring to? Do you have any guesses?]
"Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. [So
she is starting to breathe more heavily now.] She was beginning
to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was
striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white
slender hands would have been. "
"When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly
parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free,
free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed
it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast,
and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body."
[How has her emotion changed now? (She
is more excited that her husband died, rather than sad. She is finally
free of the responsibility of being a wife.) Why do you think that
she would have wanted to beat back this feeling at first? (Because
she might have been afraid of it if she had never experienced true freedom
before.)]
"She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that
held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion
as trivial."
"She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender
hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon
her, fixed and gray and dead. [What does
this sentence say about their relationship? Maybe that they did not necessarily
have a bad marriage, but that she still knew that there was something
more than the life she was leading for so long? She admits his love for
her freely here, so it was not simply because he was a brutally oppressive
husband, but he might have done small things to keep her in her meek status
as his wife. Even though he loved her, he was probably unaware of the
pain he was causing her.] But she saw beyond that bitter
moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely.
And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome. "
"There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she
would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in
that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right
to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a
cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it
in that brief moment of illumination." [So
she admits that even if he was trying to protect her by obliviously oppressing
her free will, it was still harmful nonetheless. She is now able to look
beyond the sadness that she knows she will have at the funeral to see
her whole new life ahead of her. She is free.]
"And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did
it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of
this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the
strongest impulse of her being!"
""Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering."
[Can you picture her at the window, embracing
her newfound freedom?]
"Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the
keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg,
open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing Louise?
For heaven's sake open the door."" [What
do you think her sister is thinking about Louise at this point? (That
she is shutting herself away from everyone because she is so distraught.)]
""Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking
in a very elixir of life through that open window." [But
that is not the case, is it?]
"Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring
days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She
breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday
she had thought with a shudder that life might be long." [Notice
the comparison of the two views of a long life - the complete change of
mindset from one day to the next simply based on the fact that her husband
is now gone.]
"She arose at length and opened the
door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her
eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She
clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards
stood waiting for them at the bottom." [Whenever
I read this part, I think of Louise walking very erect, with her arms
wrapped around her sister's waist, head held high, walking with a newfound
sense of freedom and purpose in her life.]
"Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. [Who
is it? (Her husband?)] It was Brently Mallard
who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack
and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident, and did not
even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing
cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife."
[Why would he want to keep her from seeing
him? (Because of her sensitive condition. The shock could be bad for
her.)]
"But Richards was too late. "
"When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--
of joy that kills." [Was
it really a joy that killed her? (No.) What was it then? (The
shock of seeing her husband after she just thought she had finally gained
her freedom for the first time in her life.) Exactly. Can you imagine
having something that you had probably wanted all of your life finally
manifesting itself, only to be snatched away immediately after receiving
it? She was not happy to see him, because when he walked through that
door, all of her hope of being a free woman went flying back out that
bedroom window. She was not overjoyed, but so incredibly depressed and
shocked by the events that, in addition to her sensitive condition, the
stress was too much for her to take.]
IV. REREADING: [Now that we have finished both stories,
we are going to talk a bit about the assignment for tomorrow. You will
probably want to reread the sections of both stories and use whatever
notes you made in order to find textual evidence for when you compare/contrast
the two characters. This, you can do on your own time when you complete
the homework.]
V. FOLLOW-UP: [Speaking of the homework, we will be filling
out the Venn Diagram about the characters of Louise and Jig for tonight.
I want you to print off the graphic organizer that was you'll find by
clicking the Venn Diagram link at the bottom of the page, and then we
can go over some ideas on the board of how to begin the comparing/contrasting.
When we come back tomorrow, I want you to have both graphic organizers
from this lesson and from the previous lesson finished, so that we can
start talking about our analises. We will discuss it a bit more later,
but eventually, I would like you to take the story we discussed today
and use it in conjunction with Hemingway’s story in order to make
a 1-2 page essay/analysis that compares and contrasts the female characters
of both stories, addressing the following questions: How did they differ
in personality? How were they alike? What core values might they both
share despite being from different time periods? What made their situations
different/similar? I want you to look at the base of each character and
tell me how they were similar and different and write a solid, textually-supported
essay for tomorrow’s class.]
VI. DIFFERENTIATION: In terms of mixing things up a bit,
the Think Aloud strategy is a differentiation in itself. It is able to
be adapted to provide as much or as little scaffolding as needed according
to the class level. More highly ordered thinking questions can be asked
if the class is more advanced, but if it is a younger class, or a class
with certain people that have trouble understanding the text, then the
questions can be adapted to fit the reading level of the students.
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