This document provides an agenda and background information for a class discussion on two short stories - "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin and "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" by Gabriel García Márquez. The class will include introductions to the authors' lives and historical contexts, discussions of the stories' literary styles and themes, and questions for analysis. Students will analyze the stories through feminist, psychoanalytic, and formalist critical lenses.

1. EWRT 1C Class 14
The Short Story

2. AGENDA
 Author Introductions:
 Kate Chopin
 Gabriel García Márquez
 Short Story Discussions:
 “The Story of an Hour”
 “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”
 Historical Context
 Literary Style
 Questions
 QHQ

3. Kate Chopin
Katherine O’Flaherty was born
February 8, 1851, in St. Louis.
Her father was an Irish merchant
and her mother was the daughter
of an old French family. Chopin’s
early fluency with French and
English, and her roots in two
different cultures, were important
throughout her life.
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening: An Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticism. Edited by
Margaret Culley. New York: W. W. Norton, 1976.

4. Early life
 Kate’s father was killed in a train
accident in 1855 (the imagined
effect on her mother was later
depicted in “The Story of an
Hour”).
 At the age of eighteen, Kate was
known as one of St. Louis’
prettiest and most popular. Her
diary, however, shows that the
stress of the social pressures to
be feminine pushed against her
passion to read her favorites:
Victor Hugo, Dante, Molière, Jane
Austen, and Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow.

5. Marriage, Family, and Money
 At twenty, Kate married Oscar
Chopin, a young,
cosmopolitan businessman.
Kate gave birth to five sons
and a daughter. Important
themes in her fiction
include motherhood’s joys
and demands, as well as
societal restraints on
women.
 Her husband, worn down by
financial worries, died in
1882, leaving Kate with a
huge debt and six children to

6. Life’s Work
 The death of her husband, and soon after, her mother,
and her own unconventional ideas demanded that she
make her own way. She started her first short story in
1888, and became a published author in 1889 when
her poem “If It Might Be” appeared in the journal
America. Her stories and sketches from this early period
show that she questioned traditional romance. “Wiser
Than a God” depicts a woman who chooses a career
as pianist over marriage. Other stories portray a
suffragist and a professional woman who try to
determine their own lives. Chopin’s friends during this
period included “New Women”—single working
women, suffragists, and intellectuals—who doubtless
influenced her previously private questioning of women’s
role in society.

7.  Kate Chopin’s reputation as a writer faded soon after her
death. Her 1899 novel, The Awakening, was out of print for 50
years. By the late 1960’s, however, Norwegian writer Per
Seyersted rediscovered Chopin and edited The Complete
Works and a critical biography in 1969. Chopin’s reputation
blossomed, and her novel is considered a classic, taught in
university literature and women’s studies courses. Largely
through the attention of scholars and critics, Chopin’s work
has enjoyed a renaissance. Her writing illustrates a variety of
feminist concerns: the tension between individual freedom and
social duty; the stifling quality of unequal marriage; the
hypocrisy of the sexual double standard; women’s desire for
creativity and independence.

8. Historical Context: The Woman Question
 "The Story of an Hour" was published in 1894, an era in which
many social and cultural questions occupied Americans' minds.
One of these, referred to as the "Woman Question," involved which
roles were acceptable for women to assume in society. Charles
Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859) had further incited this
controversy. Darwin's theory of evolution was used by both
sides of the issue: some argued the theory supported female
self-assertion and independence; others felt the theory proved
that motherhood should be the primary role of a woman in
society.
 The suffrage movement (1848-1920) endeavored to achieve
voting equality for women, yet mainstream Victorian culture still
supported the self-sacrificing wife, dependent on her husband and
devoted to her family, as the ideal of femininity.

9. Literary Style:
Point Of View and Setting

10.  “The Story of an Hour” is told
from a detached, third-person
limited point of view through
Louise, the only character
whose thoughts are accessible.
At the beginning of the story,
Louise is unable to consider her
own position in the world. As she
becomes aware of her emotions
and new situation, the reader
gains access to her thinking,
and therefore, her character. At
the end of the story, the reader
is abruptly cut off from her
thoughts, as Chopin
manipulates the narrative point
of view to underscore the theme
of the story.

11. Setting
 Chopin does not offer many clues as to where or when the
action of the story takes place, other than in the Mallard's
house. This general setting supports the theme of
commonly accepted views of the appropriate roles for
women in society. Given Chopin's other works and the
concerns she expresses about women's role in marriage in
this story and in other writings, the reader can assume that
the story takes place during Chopin's lifetime, the late
nineteenth century. Chopin was known for being a local
colorist, a writer who focuses on a particular people in a
particular locale. In Chopin's case, her stories are usually
set among the Cajun and Creole societies in Louisiana. For
this reason, "The Story of an Hour" is usually assumed
to take place in Louisiana.

12. Group Discussion
Chopin: Tension, Paradox, Irony,
Ambiguity, Questions and QHQs

13. 1. Tension
2. Paradox
3. Irony
4. Ambiguity
New Criticism: The Formal Elements

14. Discuss the story through one
critical lens
 New Criticism
 Feminist Criticism
 Psychoanalytic Criticism

15. Feminist Theory
Taking upon Simone de Beauvoir’s ideas in The Second Sex, the
contingency of Louise’s being is killed off with her husband’s
supposed death, allowing her to “live for herself” without any
“powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence” invoked by
patriarchy [. . .].
Basically, joy conditioned by patriarchy is a specific joy whose
process of attainment involves the relinquishment of patriarchy.
The patriarchy in Louise’s marriage has caused her so much
dissatisfaction, that her idea of “joy” has become redefined. As a
result, the attainment of joy requires the condition of removing that
dissatisfaction—a condition originating from patriarchy’s presence
and influence.

16. Psychoanalytic Theory
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke 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.
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.

17. Psychoanalytic Theory
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. 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 the 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.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the
joy that kills.

18.  Q: How might a
psychoanalytical reading
contrast with a feminist
reading? Do they further
support one another?

19. Questions
 Discuss Mrs. Mallard as a
sympathetic character or as a cruel
and selfish character. How might
your own gender, age, class or
ethnicity influence your response?
 Do you think Chopin's critique of
the institution of marriage, as
expressed by Louise, is applicable
today?
 Discuss Trauma: who suffers it and
why?

20. QHQ: “The Story of an Hour”
1. Q: How does the concept of love play into this story, and Mrs.
Mallard’s life?
2. Q: What does Mrs. Mallard’s newfound freedom say about
gender roles, and how does that affect the outcome of the story?
3. Q: Does “The Story of An Hour” reinforce or undermine
patriarchal ideology?
4. Q: In what ways is “The Story of an Hour” ironic?
5. Q: Why does Chopin choose to end the story with Louise’s
death? What is the effect of the ending on views of marriage and
gender roles?
6. Q: What is the significance of the line, “When the doctors came
they said she had died of heart disease—of joy that kills” (557)?

21. Gabriel García Márquez
1928-2014
Gabriel José García
Márquez was born on March
6, 1928 in a small coastal
village in Colombia. The
eldest of twelve children,
García Márquez was reared
by maternal grandparents.
He grew up with an
extended family of aunts
and great aunts who, like his
grandmother, were constant
storytellers of local myth,
superstition, and legend.

22. Career
 García Márquez’s literary development occurred
concurrently with his career as a journalist. In 1954, he
returned to Bogotá, where he worked for El
Espectador and wrote short stories in his spare time.
One of them, “Un día después del sábado” (“One Day
After Saturday”), won for García Márquez a
competition sponsored by the Association of Artists
and Writers of Bogotá. In 1955, his first novel was
published. La hojarasca (1955; Leaf Storm and Other
Stories, 1972) presents life in the fictional town of
Macondo from 1900 to 1930. García Márquez’s fiction
did not attract significant attention outside literary
circles until the publication of his masterpiece, Cien
años de soledad (1967; One Hundred Years of
Solitude, 1970).

23. The Garcia Marquez ''boom'' was fueled by a number of
developments, both in popular culture and in critical
scholarship, which made it easier for many readers to
embrace a work of ‘‘magic realism,’’ and an author from a
non-English speaking culture. The late 1960s are
characterized as a period of intense cultural change, in which
traditional values of all kinds were challenged. College
campuses were a particular focus for this controversy
(occasionally via violent confrontations between law
enforcement and student political protesters), but it also
found expression through passionate debates within the
scholarly disciplines, debates in which the most basic
assumptions were questioned, and apparently radical
changes were given serious consideration.
Historical Context

24. In literature departments, one result was an effort to
expand the ''canon''—the list of ''classic'' works whose
study is traditionally considered to form the necessary
basis of a liberal arts education. Critics charged that,
with few if any exceptions, the canon had excluded
women and people of color from the roll of ''great
authors,'' as well as writers from poor or working-class
backgrounds and those from non-European cultures.
Efforts to expand the canon, to include a more diverse
blend of cultural voices among the works considered
worthy of serious scholarship, have continued for over
thirty years. Garcia Marquez can be seen as an early
beneficiary of this trend.

25. Finally, much like the last stories we have discussed, this
story has a context within Garcia Marquez's own career. It
was written in 1968, a year after his sudden fame.
One reading of ‘‘A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings''
sees it as a satirical account of his own encounter with
instant fame, as a commentary on the position of the
creative artist in modern culture. Here, the ‘‘old man’’ is the
artist, while his "wings" stand for transcendence, greatness,
truth, beauty—that which is valuable in art. The villagers are
‘‘the public,’’ greedy for whatever ''magic'' he might bring
them—but who insist on having it on their own terms. Rather
than accepting him as he is, they treat him as a carnival
attraction and look for ways to profit from his odd celebrity.

26. Literary Style

27. Style: Magical Realism
 Magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in
which magical elements are merged with a realistic
environment in order to access a deeper understanding of
reality. These magical elements are often explained like
they are normal occurrences; this allows the "real" and the
"fantastic" to be accepted in the same stream of thought. In
combining fantastic elements with realistic details, a writer
like García Márquez can create a fictional “world” where
the miraculous and the everyday live side-by-side—where
fact and illusion, science and folklore, history and dream,
seem equally “real,” and are often hard to distinguish. The
form clearly allows writers to stretch the limits of possibility,
and to be richly inventive.

28. Magical Realism Continued
The uncertainty (or ambiguity) of magical realism applies not
just to the old man, but evidently to life itself, as it is lived in
this timeless, nameless village. It seems to be a place where
just about anything can happen (for example, a young
woman can be changed into a spider for disobeying her
parents)—or at least, it is a place where everyone is quite
willing to believe such things happen, and to act as though
they do happen. This impression is partly a result of García
Márquez's use of narrative voice.

29. Setting
 The time and place of this story are undetermined.
The characters' names suggest a Spanish-speaking
country, and a reference to airplanes indicates that
we are somewhere in the twentieth century; but
beyond these minor details, the setting is
fantastical. The narrator tells of events in the past,
using the phrase ''in those times'' in a manner
common to myths and legends. These associations
help prepare the reader for the story's "magical"
elements by suggesting that this is not a factual
history to be taken literally, but a tale of the
imagination where the usual rules may be
suspended.

30. The Narrator
 For the most part, the story seems to be told by an
“omniscient observer” of third-person fiction—a narrator
who knows all the necessary facts, and can be trusted to
present them reliably. When this kind of narrator gives the
reader information, the reader generally believes him or
her.
 However, in this case, the inconsistencies in the narrative
voice reinforces the ambiguity within the story. The narrator
is, after all, the "person" presenting all this odd imagery to
the reader, and readers habitually look to the narrator for
clues to help find a proper interpretation.

31. The Narrator
Readers rely on a narrator for clues about “how to take”
elements in the story that may be unclear. But this
narrator seems determined to be untrustworthy, and
leaves us uncertain about important events. Without
telling us how, he treats everything that happens as
though it “makes sense.” Though he is habitually ironic
in his view of the “wise” villagers' beliefs, at other times,
he seems no more skeptical than the villagers. For
example, the story of the spiderwoman seems at least
as fantastic as that of an old man with wings, but the
narrator gives no suggestion that her transformation is
particularly unusual and seems to expect the reader to
accept this ''magical'' event as if it presented no
mystery at all.

32. Reliable or Not?
 Are we to conclude that this fantastic
transformation from human to spider actually
happened? Or that the narrator is now as
deluded as the villagers? Or even that he is
purposely lying to us? As the label “magic
realism” suggests, some elements of the
story seem meant to be approached with the
simplistic “logic” of fantasy, while others are
depicted with all the complexity and
imperfection that mark “real life.”

33. Group Discussion
Garcia Marquez

34. 1. Tension
2. Paradox
3. Irony
4. Ambiguity
New Criticism: The Formal Elements
of “A Very Old Man with Enormous
Wings”

35. The Questions
1. Speculate on the identity of the “old man.”
2. How does the manner in which Garcia Marquez treats
the traditional idea of angels in "A Very Old Man with
Enormous Wings" compare with the way angels are
represented or interpreted elsewhere?
3. Discuss the story through one critical lens
4. Discuss Trauma: who suffers it and why?

36. QHQs
1. Q: What may the angel’s trajectory as a
character signify?
2. Q: In what ways in “The Very Old Man” a
rejection of God?
3. Q: How does the old man represent an
outsider and thus reveals the traumatic
effects of a society’s judgments?
4. Q: What might the seemingly magical
powers of the old man represent? Who
could this old man be?