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Literary analysis of the story of an hour by kate chopin
Kate chopin influenced life in works
Literary analysis of the story of an hour by kate chopin
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In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of An Hour,” Mrs. Mallard, burdened with “heart problems,” grieves deeply after hearing of her husband’s death in a railroad disaster. After receiving time to herself, Mrs. Mallard recognizes now that since her husband is dead, she would finally be “Free, free, free!” (Chopin 180) Soon after daydreaming of her new found freedom, Mrs. Mallard perishes at the sight of her living husband. Without a doubt, Mrs. Mallard was emotionally and physically drained by her repressive marriage. During a time when women had limited abilities due to their sex, authors like Kate Chopin influenced many women to stand up and cry out for their freedom. This movement for women’s rights heightened in the late 19th century, around the same time “The Story of An Hour” was published. Story after story, Chopin relates her characters trials to current issues and explains her own desire to escape from gender roles and …show more content…
Louis-born Kate Chopin was mentored primarily by women after her father’s death in a train accident. Women including her mother, grandmother, and great- grandmother. While attending The Academy of The Sacred Heart, a Catholic school focused on teaching independent thinking and bringing up great wives and mothers, Chopin was also guided by nuns. As a result of her female-centered upbringing, it is clear that these women influenced many of her writings. From an early age, Chopin was taught to think independently, but also to be submissive to men (Tolintino, Jasdomin). Considering her female-centered life, one can imagine Chopin’s lack of traditional conformity of submitting to men. Although, Chopin recognized that she would one day become a housewife. Being as Chopin only saw women in an authoritative position, surrendering to a man seemed foreign. After all, even with teachings of becoming a good wife and mother, Chopin was raised to have a voice for herself. Despite her independence, Chopin had a successful and happy
Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1850, Kate Chopin was an influential woman who endured many tragedies throughout her lifetime. She grew up in a bilingual and bicultural home of English and French, mostly raised by the widowed women in her family (Kate Chopin). Her father had died when she was five years old when his train crossed a collapsing bridge and all her siblings died in infancy or in their early twenties. From then till she was about sixteen years, her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother educated Chopin in French and music. She then reentered the Sacred Heart Academy and graduated top of her class (Wyatt). At age twenty, Chopin married Oscar Chopin and they moved down to New Orleans where they raised their seven children until Oscar died of malaria nearly twelve years after they were married. Chopin moved back to St. Louis with her children to live with her mother, until she died a year later, leaving Chopin alone. She died in 1904, only days after visiting the World’s Fair in St. Louis, of a cerebral hemorrhage (Kate Chopin).
Kate Chopin’s works explore female identity in a patriarchal society and place emphasis on women’s self-worth. In Louisiana, where Chopin lived at the time, wives were considered to be the lawful property of their husbands. They were bound to serve and love their husbands with no way of being independent without social stigma forcing
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” tries to shed light on the conflict between women and a society that assigns gender roles using a patriarchal approach. Specifically, Margaret Bauer highlights, that most of Chopin’s works revolve around exploring the “dynamic interrelation between women and men, women and patriarchy, even women and women” (146). Similarly, in “The Story of an Hour” Chopin depicts a society that oppresses women mostly through the institution of marriage, as women are expected to remain submissive regardless of whether they derive any happiness. The question of divorce is not welcome, and it is tragic that freedom for women can only be realized through death. According to Bauer, the society depicted in Chopin’s story judged women harshly as it expected women to play their domestic roles without question, while on the other hand men were free to follow their dreams and impose their will on their wives (149).
Kate Chopin was one of five children; and the only one to survive past the age of twenty-five. Chopin’s father was killed in a train accident when Chopin was only four years old, leaving her to be reared under the strong maternal influences of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. These determined women and life’s harsh losses taught Chopin valuable lessons of strength and independence.
In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, it talks about marriage and a woman’s life in the 1800’s. This story illustrates the stifling nature of a woman’s role during this time through Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to her husband’s death. When Mrs. Mallard obtains news that her husband is dead, she is hurt after a brief moment and then she is delighted with the thought of freedom. This story shows how life was in the mid 1800’s and how women were treated around that time.
For centuries, American literature has served as indication on the power of words to articulate encouragement for change by creating a call to action. Indeed, literature “the art that expresses life in words” (Tanvir, Para. 4) has the ability to transform the comprehensive human race. Consequently, literature serves as a record of all the dreams that made such change a possibility throughout history. Each successive era, literature begins and ends with great writers communicating their own message to their intended readers. When skillfully written, enthusiastic, and engaging a piece of literature possesses the power to create a substantial contribution. One such great writer, Kate Chopin often wrote about an alternative way of thinking in regards to a women’s position in the 19th Century. Chopin was well known for some of the most shaping feminist stories and novels during her time. Accordingly, in her short story “The Story of an Hour” Chopin tells the tale of Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to the death of her husband, instead of fearing the forlorn widow years ahead of her; she falters upon a different comprehension all together. After hearing the news of her husband’s alleged death, Mrs. Mallard retreats to her bedroom in solitude. Although Mrs. Mallard is initially distraught by the news, she sits down, gawks out a window and astonishingly, it is spring and everything comes to life. As the reader takes an expedition with Mrs. Mallard on her revelation of true independence, Chopin’s strong word choice sheds light on and develops ideas that articulate, boost and deepen the content. Truly, her short story is comprehensible and clear-cut; Chopin plainly describes people and objects without wasting any words. While “The Story of an Hour” ...
Freedom for women in the 19th century was unheard of; it was scoffed at, thrown away, and rebuked for a great while. With this being said, it is clear that the main theme of “The Story of an Hour,” written in 1894, is freedom and confinement: two opposites to emphasize the inequality of a world that was in a state of men over women, not just men and women. To convey her aggressive contention, however, Chopin had to employ some regular tools of literature. Although the setting can be overlooked in such a brief story, it emphasizes the theme by bringing new detail and meaning to the story. Chopin also utilizes characterization to foreshadow events later in the story. At the same time, the third person omniscient view provides valuable insight into Mrs. Mallard’s character and delivers a fuller, more complete story. Altogether, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin develops a complex theme through the precise use of literary tools.
According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, feminism is defined as the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism is a major part of the short story, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, which is a story that portrays women’s lack of freedom in the1800s. Women had no rights, and had to cater to all of their husband’s needs. The main character in “The Story of an Hour” is a woman who suffers from heart trouble, named Mrs. Mallard. When Mrs. Mallard was told about her husband’s death, she was initially emotional, but because of her husband’s death she reaped freedom and became swept away with joy. The story is ironic because Mrs. Mallard learns her husband was not dead, and instead of exulting her husband’s sudden return she regretted abandoning her moment of freedom. An analysis of “The Story if an Hour” through the historical and feminist lenses, suggests that the story is really about women’s self-identity in the 1800s male-dominated society, and how it caused women’s lack of freedom.
Kate Chopin was such a polymath, that she wanted to improve her skill so much more and decided to attend Sacred Heart Academy in St. Louis to improve her literacy. The Sacred Heart Academy was focused on producing better Catholic wives and mothers, by the nuns. They made it an all-women’s school, but for most women there was no further education for the women after high school. There were a selective few women who were admitted in the American college, and maybe one proper profession was open to married women of writing in this
Kate Chopin is an American writer known for portraying her female characters as “strong”. In the nineteenth century, women 's roles in society were restricted. This situation resulted in woman serving their husbands and not having a voice of their own. Do Mrs. Baroda and Mrs. Mallard share the same views? In the stories “A Respectable Woman” and “The Story of an Hour,” Chopin shows how society has affected women’s views about marriage and life.
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” offers readers a critical feminist view that focuses on female oppression in the 19th century society, especially in marriage. Chopin tells this story of gender identity and liberating freedom through the eyes of Louise Mallard. Critics discovered Chopin in the 1960’s during the rise of the feminist movement for her writings of “female spiritual emancipation” and sentiment against repression of the soul (Deter). In 1975, Susan Cahill declared the story “one of feminism’s sacred texts” (Toth). This theme displays the intense feelings of women’s empowerment during this time. In an extraordinarily gender based society, the determination and expression of a woman’s desire for unique identity distinct from her
Kate Chopin describes a story of great irony. The story greatly shows how women were repressed in the past. Women were not treated equally to men, and they had less freedom, rights, and power. Freedom is a basic human need people thrive on it, it is so important to human beings regardless of what country, religion, cultural you live in. Kate Chopin introduced Mrs. Mallard, a young woman who finds out her husband has died in a train wreck. She reacts with sadness at first, but then realizes in a rush of emotion & relief that she is “Free! Body and soul free!”(199) She views the world with a fresh outlook--one where she will be her own person, answering only to herself. She is ready to begin this new life when her husband--who evidently wasn’t on the train after all--comes home. The woman (Mrs. Mallard) eventually died of shock because she had lost her newfound freedom. The ending of the story portrays the society in which women had less freedom than men.
“There is no perfect relationship. The idea that there is gets us into so much trouble.”-Maggie Reyes. Kate Chopin reacts to this certain idea that relationships in a marriage during the late 1800’s were a prison for women. Through the main protagonist of her story, Mrs. Mallard, the audience clearly exemplifies with what feelings she had during the process of her husbands assumed death. Chopin demonstrates in “The Story of an Hour” the oppression that women faced in marriage through the understandings of: forbidden joy of independence, the inherent burdens of marriage between men and women and how these two points help the audience to further understand the norms of this time.
During the feminist movement in the 1850s, Kate Chopin was a famous author. Chopin’s realism writing helped people with their emotion, letting people relate to real life situations. Kate Chopin was a middle class woman who was very talented. At a young age Chopin fell in love with writing. Chopin wrote many short stories and poems, including her two most known short stories, “The Story of an Hour” and The Awakening. These two writings have themes that show women have a lack of freedom during the time period she wrote her stories. In her mid 1800 short story “The Story of an Hour”, Kate Chopin explores the theme of women feeling isolated by using symbolism and imagery.
Kate Chopin, author of “The Story of an Hour” written in 1894 was the first author who emphasized strongly on femininity in her work. In the short story, Chopin writes about freedom and confinement Chopin is an atypical author who confronts feminist matter years before it was assumed. The time period that she wrote in women were advertised as a man’s property. The main idea in the short story is to illustrate that marriage confines women. In “The Story of an Hour” the author creates an intricate argument about freedom and confinement Mrs. Louise Mallard longing for freedom, but has been confined for so long freedom seems terrible. Mrs. Mallard wife of Brently Mallard instantly feels free when her husband dies. The reason she feels this way