Through many decades, women have been treated in ways that personify them as objects rather than people. In the 1800s and early 1900s, wives were considered to be the ones to cook, clean, and take care of their family rather than have a life of their own and a job that could allow them to grow in knowledge. By comparing Guy de Maupassant's The Necklace and Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour we are able to gain a deeper understanding of how women were living during the late 1800s. Both Maupassant and Chopin show how sorrowful women were during these times. However, Maupassant argues that women were unhappy due to the social rank their family was apart of while Chopin depicts women's despair to be caused from the inability to become independent. By positioning these two texts in conversation with each other, the reader is able to grasp a larger understanding on the time period in which these were both written in and infer the main theme of women's livelihood during these years.

The Necklace was written by Guy de Maupassant and was likely based off of the life that his mother was living. Even though he was born into a prosperous family in France, Maupassant's family had lost their fortune when he was still a young boy. With this knowledge, it is extremely likely that he wrote this text due to the fact that his mother, not only sparked his interest in literature, but also was a mother yearning the beauty and glamour that she used to possess. 

During the late 1800s, women were not classified by their social ranking or which family they were birthed in to; rather they were judged by their beauty, grace, and pure charm. This story revolves around a young married woman who was unfortunately born into a poor family of clerks with no expectations and no means of being known. She has the charm and the beauty, but dressed plainly due to her inability to afford more. She had friends who became rich after grade school, but could no longer visit them due to the melancholy she would feel as she returned home. Her husband, Loisel, continued to put her needs before his own. In the beginning of the story, the couple gets a letter from their dear friends with an invitation to the annual ball attached. Within minutes she began to cry; she had nothing to wear and no money to afford anything new. Loisel gets his savings and allows her to buy dress to make her happy again and her wealthy friend lets her borrow a diamond necklace for the ball so she could complete her glamourous image. However, after the ball she reaches for the necklace to discover that it had gone missing. In panic, they search everywhere but have no luck. Unfortunately, they went to the story to buy a brand new necklace to replace the borrowed one only to find out the old necklace she had lost was made from paste. Due to the purchase of the new necklace, Loisel and his wife were in debt for the rest of their lives. To her, glamour meant the world and she was not meant to live a lifestyle full of poverty and unhappiness. Glamour ended up costing her the rest of her life. 

In The Necklace the woman begins to become distressed due to her poor lifestyle and shows her unhappiness in many ways. For example, she begins to talk to her husband about the ball, "'No; there's nothing more humiliating than to look poor among other women who are rich.'" This shows the humility that she has for the way she lives and the life that she has. However, she is unable to notice that her husband does anything to please her and she continues to be discontent. After she looses the necklace, they buy a brand new one to return to her dear friend. Maupassant later explains her new lifestyle where they can barely afford to survive. "With frowsy hair, skirts askew, and red hands, she talked loud while washing the floor with great swishes of water. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down near the window, and she thought of that grey evening of long ago, of that ball where she had been so beautiful and so feted." By including this minute but crucial part to the story, the reader begins to realize that the woman would give up her entire life for one night where she could feel important and wealthy among all of her friends. Maupassant's story revolved around the theme of glamour and beauty which was pivotal to a woman's happiness during the 1800s.

With this in mind, Kate Chopin had a very different understanding of a woman's contentment when she wrote The Story of an Hour. Chopin was known to write texts that were extremely controversial to the general public. She pushed limits with what was accepted and what were considered "improper" subjects. Many of her written works received national acclaims; however, once she published The Story of an Hour, her publisher dropped her and most of the bookstores pulled her novels of the shelves. In the late 1800s, many of the topics she discussed were immensely controversial and soon became very unpopular to the majority of readers.

This story was produced in 1894 and revolves a lady named Mrs. Mallard who was a housewife for a very wealthy husband who commuted to the city for work everyday. She had a heart trouble, but it never bothered her much. However, this was a large factor when her loving friend and sister decided to break the news of her husband's passing due to a freak accident. Ms. Mallard was extremely upset with the news and immediately began to cry but soon she found a sense of happiness coming out. She discovered that she was now free; free to live her life fully and free to make her own decisions. This was her true dream. She wanted a life beyond her home, she thrived to become more than just a wife that cleaned a home and had supper on the table before her husband arrived from work. The joy that filled her heart when she heard the news made her feel guilty, but soon made her realize that she would be able to live her life the way that she wished for. After she had finally come at peace with his passing and began to dream of the future, a man had entered the door. As she saw her husband approach her she realized her dreams were forever lost and Mrs. Mallard immediately dropped to the floor and died. The story says that she had died from heart disease; however, the irony shows that she had really died from a broken heart full of unfulfilled dreams. 

Even though this story is full of tragedies, Chopin makes it inevitable that a woman's happiness is through her ability to be independent. She believed that women thrived to be in charge of their lives, to be able to have a job, and to have more than an obligation to have dinner on the table at night.  Many examples can be found in the text that display Mrs. Mallard's willingness for independence. Chopin states, "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 pure joy that filled her soul not only let her be free from guilt, but allowed her to realize that she was allowed to fulfill her goals. She finally had realized she was free from her obligations as a wife and could focus on what truly mattered to her. As the end of the story approaches, the husband appears, "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." The end of the story completes the idea that independence was the main wish for women in the 1800s. Chopin uses her "veiled hints" to articulate the controversial topic of women's rights and their positions in life and marriage.

Guy de Maupassant and Kate Chopin both discuss what the main wishes were for women in late 1800s. Maupassant believed women strived for glamour and beauty, while Chopin believed that women's happiness was driven by their independence.  Chopin's main character is Mrs. Mallard who is a wife to a wealthy business man, so glamour and beauty is not as vital to the theme as it is in The Necklace. Mrs. Mallard already has money for the items that she wants, so she is able to dream bigger than the Loisel's wife. If a common theme could be constructed from both of theses stories, it would likely revolve around the fact that women want what they do not already have. They want the next best thing in life, because they get bored with what they already have. Both women begin to become jealous of what certain people have. If we were to compare these stories, the woman in The Necklace would be striving to become Mrs. Mallard, the woman in The Story of an Hour, while Mrs. Mallard would likely be striving to become a female version of her husband. Each woman has a dream, but that is exactly what a dream is, something you really want to obtain that you do not already have.

