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Knowledge & Violence The Connection Essay

Thus, Hemingway suggests that the link between secondhand knowledge and violence is that the violence becomes muted when passed on secondhand, making it nearly impossible for others to understand the violence, and so, therefore, rendering the violence useless. Like Krebs, Mrs. Mallard's sister and husband's friend both have secondhand knowledge of violence in "The Story of an Hour," despite the fact that that knowledge is misinformation, for when they reveal that knowledge to Mrs. Mallard, the knowledge is real to them. Because both Josephine and Richards have only secondhand knowledge of Mr. Mallard's tragic and violent death, the violence of such a death is muted when passed onto Mrs. Mallard, allowing her to misconstrue the pain that her husband, whom she had "sometimes" loved into a joyous occasion. That she did, indeed, misconstrue his pain is emphasized by the fact that Mrs. Mallard "knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death" (Chopin para. 20). Certainly, if there had been a gruesome train accident, Mr. Mallard's hands would not appear gentle, as they...

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Thus, through "The Story of an Hour," Chopin, too, shows that violence becomes muted through secondhand knowledge. In this case, Mrs. Mallard's musings about her husband's hands and face, and her obvious misunderstanding of his violent death, allow this story to be read with a positive feminist reading, suggesting the cage in which all women lived. Without this sentence, it would be easy to read Mrs. Mallard as a monster.
Thus, the old saying that violence is caused by ignorance is no less true, but as these stories both show, there is a connection between knowledge and violence. Interestingly, misinformation -- or incorrect knowledge -- and secondhand knowledge are paired with specific kinds of violence -- internal violence and muted violence.

Works Cited

Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." Reading About the World. 1998. Department of English, Washington State University. 2 September 2009.

Hemingway, Ernest. "Soldier's Home." Ernest Hemingway: The Collected Stories. Ed.

James Fenton. New York: Everyman's Library,…

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Works Cited

Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." Reading About the World. 1998. Department of English, Washington State University. 2 September 2009.

Hemingway, Ernest. "Soldier's Home." Ernest Hemingway: The Collected Stories. Ed.

James Fenton. New York: Everyman's Library, 1995. 87-93.
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