Option 2: “The Birth Mark” and “The Story of an Hour”

The “Story of an Hour” seems to suggest that happiness can be different than what society would intend and that it varies per person. The former becomes very apparent when we see Mrs. Mallard relieved rather than grief stricken, whereas the latter shows itself where the husband’s happiness is to be with his wife, while her happiness requires her to be separated from her husband.  The “Birth Mark” couples the fact that happiness varies per person along with the fact that happiness can change with time. The Husband in the story has a whole chronology of what made/makes him happy described in the story. It essentially goes from loving science to loving his wife to the need to remove the birthmark (which rekindles his love of science) which all then comes to a complete halt with the death of his wife, which in turn ends the story. I feel that this is a very nice touch to the story because it forces us, the readers to infer the husband’s reaction to her death. Though more importantly, it is leaving it up to us to wonder what can then make him happy, if he is even capable of feeling such an emotion at this juncture.  This leads us to the moral of this story which can be summed up by a Chinese proverb; “Gold cannot be pure, and people cannot be perfect.” This suggests that the pursuit of perfection can lead to the degradation and even ruination of the thing that you are trying to perfect. This also has a subtle nuance which expresses that it is possible to ruin one’s happiness, and in some cases making it so that one can never be happy again. After all,as aptly stated by Lady Macbeth, “what’s done cannot be undone”. (Act V. scene 1, Macbeth)