Question

Can someone help me?

1. Recall Benjamin Franklin said, "Good wives usually make good husbands" and "The likeliest Way, either to obtain a good Husband, or to keep one so, is to be Good yourself."

What would Benjamin Franklin say about the Purkapile's marriage?

2. Benjamin Franklin said, "Be assured, a Woman's Power, as well as Happiness, has no other Foundation but her Husband's Esteem and Love."

Based on her thinking before learning of her husband's death, how would Mrs. Mallard in "The Story of an Hour" have responded to Franklin's idea?

Answer 1

Hello @Priiincessxx,

1. Benjamin Franklin would not like Purkapile's marriage. Purkapile's marriage only Purkapile loved his wife, she didn't really love him.

2. Characters' actions don't always reveal how they feel on the inside. We get the sense that they put on a show of proper behavior, while feeling true, unpopular feelings only on the inside. Mrs. Mallard's response to the news of Mr. Mallard's death simultaneously proves how different she is from other women and yet how she seems to truly, honestly mourn her husband:

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms.

The narrator says here that "many women" would respond with "paralyzed inability" but Mrs. Mallard is unique in crying right away. While acting so differently should make other characters realize that perhaps something is out of the ordinary, the fact that Mrs. Mallard displays her grief so "wild[ly]" seems to make them think she is devastated at the loss of her husband.

Similarly, when Mrs. Mallard is locked up in her room crying, her sister Josephine thinks Mrs. Mallard "will make [her]self ill". Really, though, Mrs. Mallard is experiencing an epiphany and a call to freedom; if she is making herself sick, she's sick on the euphoric feeling of no longer being attached to anyone else.

So Mrs. Mallard would have loved Ben's idea. Hope this has helped!!!

Answer 2

Good job @chandowd

Answer 3

@Chandowd , Thank you so much!! :)

Answer 4

np! :)