Question What are the similarities between the American wife in Hemingway’s “Cat in the Rain” and Mrs. Mallard in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour?” The American wife and Mrs. Mallard are both the protagonist of their stories. Hemingway and Chopin wrote the two stories in a time when women were struggling for more freedoms and equal rights. This is why the stories deal with the desire of freedom and power of the American wife and Louise Mallard. Even though, the American wife and Mrs. Mallard come from different backgrounds the readers are left with the feeling that they are both oppressed, characteristically by their husbands. The American wife is trying to find her own path in life, her freedom through the search of a cat. Mrs. Mallard on the other hand experiences a short period of freedom and then she is punished for her happiness. What they both want is not widely accepted by the society, the American wife goes back to her monotonous life while Mrs. Mallard dies when she finds out that her short liberation is over. In the exposition of his story Hemingway sets the background and setting of the story and foreshadows the conflict the reader is going to see between George and his wife – the contrast between the war monument and the garden, between the room and the sea. Kate Chopin uses similar style to foreshadow the problems Louise Mallard is experiencing in her personal life – the author uses the phrase ‘heart problems’ instead of disease, which means that the problems Mrs. Mallard is experiencing are not just physical but also emotional. In the beginning of the story Kate Chopin uses a dangling particle to emphasize the theme of secrecy and the two sides of her protagonist character. Something similar can be observed in “Cat in the rain”, where as soon as the American wife leaves the room in search of the cat she begins a journey, maybe short, of self-discovery. The American wife reaches an epiphany o