Search for Free 150,000+ Essays

Find more results for this search now!
CLICK the BUTTON to the RIGHT!

Need a Brand New Custom Essay Now?  click here

Symbolism in Short Stories of Hemingway and Chopin

Uploaded by spootyhead on Mar 20, 2007

Symbolism in Short Stories of Hemingway and Chopin
Symbolism may play a major role in accurately interpreting a story or poem. In Ernest Hemingway’s story The Cat in the Rain (pages 55-58) the author uses a helpless little kitten to symbolize the young girl in the story. Kate Chopin uses a fierce rain storm to stand for passion in her story The Storm. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s disturbing and yet conveying essay entitled The Yellow Wallpaper, she selects a gaudy yellow patterned wallpaper to some how come to represent a woman. All of these elements play a major role in bringing across the ideas the author is trying to relate to the reader.

In the story The Cat in the Rain Hemingway describes a young, American woman stuck in Italy with her uncaring, older husband. He then goes on to add a kitten to the story that he describes as young, wet and most of all, stuck in the rain. The way he selects his words and uses to describe the two objects could almost be interchangeable. He uses words such as kitty (page 56) to describe the youth of the cat and young to describe the woman. He also pronounces them both as lonely. The young woman it is being forced to stay in a country where she knows no one and is being oppressed by her husband, who wants nothing more for her to do than to stand there, always looks innocent, and keep her thoughts to herself. As for the kitten, it is forced to stay out in the cold rain and continue to get soaked because it has no shelter to run to in order to find safety. In the story the woman sees herself in the kitten and that is why she makes such a big deal about getting it for her own. I think this is also Hemingway’s of leaving drops of evidence for the reader to pick up on the symbolism that he sees important to the story.

Kate Chopin goes about presenting symbolism in her story The Storm in a different manner than Hemingway. Instead of focusing on live objects in her writing she chooses to use a feeling such as passion and represent it through a furious...

Sign In Now to Read Entire Essay

Not a Member?   Create Your FREE Account »

Comments / Reviews

read full essay >>

Already a Member?   Login Now >

This essay and THOUSANDS of
other essays are FREE at eCheat.

Uploaded by:   spootyhead

Date:   03/20/2007

Category:   English

Length:   3 pages (784 words)

Views:   7727

Report this Essay Save Essay
Professionally written essays on this topic:

Symbolism in Short Stories of Hemingway and Chopin

View more professionally written essays on this topic »