Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

Written in 1894, “The Story of an Hour” is a story of a woman who, through the erroneously reported death of her husband, experienced true freedom. Both tragic and ironic, the story deals with the boundaries imposed on women by society in the nineteenth century. The author Kate Chopin, like the character in her story, had first-hand experience with the male-dominated society of that time and had experienced the death of her husband at a young age (Internet). The similarity between Kate Chopin and her heroine can only leave us to wonder how much of this story is fiction and how much is personal experience.

Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” represents a primitive perspective of marriage by presenting the reader with a woman that is thrilled that her husband passed away. This is conveyed through the language used to describe Louise’s emotions as she shifts between numbness and euphoria at her instant individuality. The narrator relates what she sees in simple text, but when her emotions are described, the words are bright and potent. This implies that Louise has an unaffiliated life that is numb to the outside world and her alone time is invaluable to her. The environment surrounding her is only minimally described, but the narrator describes the image in her head as an oasis. The view outside of her room is paradisiacal like her mind, but

Feminism is played out in a major way in Kate Chopins’ “The Story of an Hour.” The story portrays a story about the lack of freedom that all woman had in the 1800’s. The word feminism as defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes. A woman’s job and duty in the 1800’s was to tend to the needs of their husband’s needs. In “The Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard, one of the main characters, was told about her husband’s death and she was initially very emotional. Her sadness was quickly turned into a burst of joy because she felt a sense of freedom. The story takes a very weird and ironic twist because her husband was really not dead and when Mrs. Mallard finds out about this she regretted abandoning her moment of freedom. If we were looking at this story through the historical and feminist lenses one would suggest that this story is about a male dominated society in the 1800s. This male dominated society caused the woman to have a lack of freedom and really made it hard for woman to have a self-identity.

In the story of an hour, Kate Chopin has depicted a tone amongst many wives of the late nineteenth century. Women, by this time, were very far from the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution or the “Women’s Suffrage Movement.” What this explains is that women of this era are still being undermined by society, neither unequal nor independent from that of the voice of the masculine gender. This treatment towards women was a domestic one. Many betrothed women of this timeframe were unhappy in their marriages, due to a culture that shunned the idea of a free and empowered woman. The underlying meaning that Kate Chopin wanted to convey in The Story of an Hour, is that woman of the late nineteenth century were repressed, unhappy, and imprisoned in their marriages.

Looking at the early and late 19th century paintings, one can see that majority of them showed women and children in their respective roles. Motherhood was revered and something to be honored and commemorated. The women were seen only in the roles of wives, mothers and caretakers and society considered this their appropriate place. Women who were single were termed as 'spinsters ' and were not given the same status in society as married women. In the story of an hour, the author, Kate Chopin describes the emotions of a woman who is married and tied down to this oath for the rest of her life. The author uses the ways of the society during that time to construct a story that accurately reflects the feelings of majority of women of that

Everyone who reads a story will interpret things slightly different than the person who reads it before or after him or her. This idea plays out with most every story, book, song, and movie. These interpretations create conflict and allow people to discuss different ideas and opinions. Without this conflict of thought there is no one devoting time to debate the true meaning of a text. Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” tells about a woman who is informed of her husbands death, processes the emotions, and becomes content with this new status as an individual person – losing all the expectations that society expected her to live by within a marriage. This story however is written in a way that the reader has the final interpretation of the text. There are many different interpretations on not only the reason for the main character’s death, but also on the overwhelming emotions that she faces.

Considered one of American’s foremost feminist authors, Kate Chopin addresses issues challenging to the social and gender roles of the late 1800s. She celebrates women who seek their own identity and focuses on individual journeys of self-discovery. Her short story “The Story of an Hour” has a unique structure in that it adheres to a realistic premise, yet contains a protagonist who represents idealism. Faced with the news that her husband has died, Mrs. Mallard takes ownership of her own emotions and strength to control her life. However, her emotional revelation emerges only upon her husband’s supposed death. Chopin juxtaposes physical death with emotional freedom, suggesting actions and feelings are determined by social, psychological, and emotional forces instead of individual will. In order to show the fragility of Mrs. Mallard and her idealism, Chopin creates a microcosm in Mrs. Mallard’s bedroom of solidarity; a world of freedom and choice within the bedroom and the world of deterministic forces on the other side of the door. Through the setting, Chopin explores the dichotomy between the desire to change one’s situation and the possibility to change one’s situation.

In the “Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, is about pleasure of freedom and the oppression of marriage. Just like in Kate Chopin’s story, inside most marriages, even the ones that seem to be the happiest, one can be oppressed. Even though, one might seem to be happy deep inside they miss the pleasure of freedom and living life to the fullest. Just like, in this story Mrs. Mallard feels trapped and when she hears about her husband’s death she first feels distraught, but ultimately realizes that she has gained her freedom. This news leads her to an inner battle within herself, as she tries to keep those feelings from coming out. The story culminates when she dies of a heart attack, because she realizes that her husband is not dead and she would be returning to her old pointless existence. This story has many great literary elements that keep the story interesting throughout its plot, by using great foreshadowing and symbolism.

Within the past century, the United State and the world has undergone a dramatic revolution in the status and empowerment of women in society, as women search for and fight for selfhood. “Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin questions social conventions concerning marriage and women’s independence. “Story of an Hour” illustrates the themes of the quest for identity and the subjugation from romantic love through the depiction of the open window, death, and “heart trouble,” symbolizing Mrs. Mallard’s transformation from her newfound freedom from the subjugation of marriage. Mrs. Mallard is portrayed sitting “facing the open window,” as she contemplates the death of her husband, and soon comes into the realization of the freedom she has attained.

Mrs. Mallard is a woman that is suffering in marriage. We realize that she was not very optimistic about her married life. The night prior to the "death" of her husband, she had quietly prayed for her life to be short. She had reached a point of disillusionment and would gladly welcome death as an option out of the marriage. When she learns that her husband had perished in the train accident, she first reacts by

Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor discusses many topics and insights that can be found in literature. Foster explains how each are used and the purposes they serve while providing numerous examples. Many of Foster’s insights can be found in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of An Hour” which was written during a time in history when women were often restricted by society and marriage. The story speaks of a woman who felt freed from the burden of marriage when she thought her husband died, only to die the moment she realized he was actually alive. Foster’s insights about weather, heart disease, and flight that are evident in “The Story of An Hour” greatly influence the story’s interpretation in several ways.

Analysis of “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin Mary Astell, a sixteenth-century English writer, once stated: “If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?” In the short story “The Story of an Hour”, author Kate Chopin illustrates a woman’s sundry emotions upon hearing of her husband’s death. To the woman’s own surprise, she experiences feelings of relief and a newfound freedom. Undeniably, since the beginning of time women have been enslaved by society’s unwritten mandate for a woman’s life: find an agreeable suitor, marry, produce children and be the perfect housewife. This precedent left women at risk of being characterized as abnormal or damaged if these actions were not accomplished by a certain age.

Opener- Every individual takes a diverse path when facing the loss of a loved one. Whether it is sobbing your heart out or being in a state of panic and pure shock. Controlling idea- However Louis Mallard has a different reaction to the news of her husbands passing. Plot summary- Her sister Josephine informed her that her husband has been allegedly killed in a train accident. She then locks herself in her bedroom, in misery, all alone. Sitting in a “comfortable, roomy armchair” (Chopin 1) she begins to consider what her life will be like now that her husband has passed on. The grief she feels at the beginning eventually morphs into a joy that will later be the implied collapse of her own death. Main Claim- In Kate Chopin’s acclaimed short

`The Story of an Hour' was written in the nineteenth century and during this time highly restrictive gender roles forbade women to live as they saw fit. Kate Chopin presents in her story,

In the past many decades the definition of what a marriage means changed dramatically in some areas. For the author of both stories, Kate Chopin, she wanted the reader to get something out of the story. She likes to explore all types of themes in her stories such as, racism, the roles of women, and adultery. With these themes and messages she struggled to have most of her stories published. In many of her stories she passed along these messages through the manner of a marriage. In her short stories “The Story of an Hour” and “Desiree 's Baby” she showed just how different marriages could be as well as how similar they can be. Chopin portrays the lives of the main characters, Louise Mallard from “The Story of An Hour” and Desiree Aubigny