Prisons come in all shapes and sizes, some do not have walls or locks. This is evident in Kate Chopin’s short fiction pieces, “Desiree’s Baby”, “The Story of An Hour”, and “The Storm” where all of Chopin’s main female characters are imprisoned by their role as wife and all that implies during the 19th century.
Kate Chopin whose name was first Catherine O’Flaherty was born on July 12, 1850 in St. Louis. Her father Thomas O’ Flaherty had only been in the United States since 1823, in 1825 he moved to St. Louis. As time went by he became a very wealthy merchant. Later he married his first wife in 1839, who died after giving birth he later married Kate’s mother in 1844. Kate’s father died suddenly in 1855 when she was only five years old forcing her to rethink everything she knew. June 9, 1870 she married a man named Oscar Chopin and later moved to New Orleans, they had their first child Jean Chopin in 1871. Their last child was born in 1879. She faced family tragedy in the following years with her husband Oscar dieing in December 1882 due to swamp fever, she moved her family back to St. Louis to be live closer to her mother and begin to write to support herself and her children. Chopin wrote during the Victorian period which based itself on social customs and monetary stature. Her mother then passed away in June 1885. Chopin followed in August 1904 when she passed away due to a brain hemorrhage.
As a women who was raised in the 19th century she was well aware of limitations and restrictions of women. In “The Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard’s name begins our symbolism for imprisonment. A mallard is a wild animal not meant to be tamed and often kept in cages. That is the way Mrs. Mallard feels trapped by her husband, kept in a c...
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A connection can be drawn among the stories listed above regarding women who live as prisoners. Beatrice, of Rappaccini's Daughter, is confined to a garden because of her father's love of science, and she becomes the pawn to several men's egos. The woman of The Yellow Wallpaper is trapped by her own family's idea of how she should conduct herself, because her mood and habit of writing are not "normal" to them. Sethe, of Beloved, carries the burden of her past and also the past of all slaves. She is unwelcome in her community and a prisoner in her own home, where she is forced to confront these memories of slavery. All three of these women are viewed by society as crazy, evil, or both. The "prisons" in which these women live are constructed by their family, their history, or even themselves.
Let us start with Chopin herself. Without going into too much detail Kate Chopin was, for all practical purposes raised by her maternal great-grandmother. She was raised as a Catholic, took daily music lessons and was told somewhat adult stories by her great-grandmother spinning the local gossip regarding the founders of St. Louis that seemed to greatly influence the writings of Kate.
Kate Chopin was born in St. Louis in 1851. Her mother Eliza O’Flaherty and father Thomas O’Flaherty were Slave-owning Catholics. (Wilson, Kathleen. The Story of an Hour. Ssfs. 2. Detroit, Michigan: Gale, 1997. 263. Print.) (Wilson 263) At the age of four she had lost her father in a train wreck. She was raised by her French-Creole mother and Great-Grandma. She had begun school at the age of five at Academy of Sacred Heart. After her father died she was taught at home. Later she returned to school and graduated at the age of 17. She got married at the age of twenty years to Oscar Chopin, twenty-five years old and a son of a wealthy cotton-growing family in Louisiana. He was also a French catholic like Kate. Chopin went as...
Like in many tragically true stories, it would seem Mrs. Mallard 's freedom came too late. Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour” begins by introducing Mrs. Mallard as a person afflicted with heart trouble. The story builds on this by having Mrs. Mallard’s sister Josephine and her husband Richard explain the situation in a very sensitive manner. Their efforts would prove to be in vain however as Mrs. Mallard then proceeds to emotionally break down. The news shocks Mrs. Mallard to her very core and has her at odds with how she should feel now that all was said and done. After coming to terms with her situation, fate delivers its final blow in a cruel and deceitful ploy towards Mrs. Mallards. And with that, Mrs. Mallard 's dies. In her hour of change Mrs. Mallard 's was delicate, thoughtful and excitable.
Kate Chopin was born on February 8, 1851, into a wealthy Catholic family in St. Louis Missouri. As a little girl, her father died a few years later in 1855 and was raised at home with her other sisters and mother, strong willed and prominent women who believed in self sufficiency. Soon, on June 9, 1870, Chopin married a man named Oscar. She graduated from St. Louis convent school. In the meanwhile, Kate was soon busy by the occupations of a being a mother and wife to the prestigious business man, Oscar whom she married. Throughout this escapade of life, Kate was forced to relocate often due to her husband’s change of business. Although, it was difficult to build upon these circumstances, Kate managed a small farm and plantation farm to keep things running. Even through these circumstances, Kate pulled through only to discover that all these locals would soon be her inspirations and se...
Wyatt, Neal "Biography of Kate Chopin" English 384: Women Writers. Ed. Ann M. Woodlief Copyright: 1998, Virginia Commonwealth University. (26 Jan. 1999) http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384/katebio.htm
Kate Chopin was born February 8, 1851 in St. Louis. Her father was an Irish merchant and her mother was the daughter of an old French family. Chopin’s early fluency was with French and English, and her roots in two different cultures were important throughout her life. In 1855 Kate’s father Thomas O’Flaherty was killed in a train wreck which left her mother heart broken and Kate was left being raised in a female household by her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. Her grandmother had a huge impact on Kate life and taught her female views on life such as love, dreams, imagination, and storytelling to capture a world not yet experienced (Jones, Michelle L. Dictionary). Growing up as a child Kate began her education at Sacred Heart Academy, a Catholic school devoted to creating good wives and mothers, while also teaching independent thinking. While at Sacred Heart Academy she began to read books such as John Bunyan’s “The Pilgrim’s Progress” (Marlowe, Jean G). She also read old-fashioned romances and contemporary popular novels by women. In 1861 when the Civil war began Kate was greatly affected by the violence and stayed home where she began to write in her book called the Common Place Book. The book was her first assignment given to her by a nun...
Kate Chopin was born February 8, 1850 in St. Louis. She was raised by a single woman; this impacted her views in the family at an early age. She began her own family at a young age; Kate had a different method compare too many women in her time. As time progressed, she developed a bad habit of dressing inappropriately. Soon she started to publish stories about the experiences and stories of her interests such as women’s individuality and miserable
Louise Mallard is a woman who enjoys freedom and independence. She feels soaring relief and fiery triumph upon realizing that, yes, she is finally free. She is free of the weighted ropes of marriage. She fantasizes of her days ahead, living for herself and only herself. “A kind intention or cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination” (Chopin 234). She views the imposing of one’s will on another person as a crime, no matter the intention behind it. She has a taste of freedom after Mr. Mallard’s death and can finally see days without stress ahead of her. Prior to her husband’s death, young Mrs. Mallard feels tied down and even oppressed. “She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength” (Chopin 233). Despite the typical oppression of women throughout the centuries prior to the 1920s, Mrs. Mallard possesses a free spirit.
Kate Chopin was born Kate O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri in 1850 to secure and socially prominent parent, Eliza O'Flaherty, of French-Creole descent, and Thomas O'Flaherty, an Irish immigrant and successful commission merchant. Kate attended the St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart from 1855 until she graduated on 1868. In 1855, her father was died in a railroad accident. She lived at home with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, all of them were widows. Her great-grandmother, Victoria Verdon oversaw her education and taught her French, music, and the gossip on St. Louis women of the past. Kate O'Flaherty grew up surrounded by smart, independent, single women. Victoria's own mother had been the first woman in St. Louis to obtain legal separation from her husband. She was influenced by her upbringing among these women. This showed up later in her fiction. For example, in her first short story “Wiser than a god” she characterized a strong and independent woman. This woman had an exceptional musical talent. She preferre...
Born Katherine O’Flaherty on February 8, 1851, in St. Louis, Chopin was the daughter of a prominent Irish merchant and an aristocratic French-Creole mother. Chopin’s roots in, and familiarity with, two distinctly different cultures were important on both a personal and creative level throughout her life. As a member of a slave-owning family and an elite social circle, Chopin was exposed to people of diverse color and background, many of whom provided the basis for her later writings.
In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, the struggle for freedom is dominant. The main character, Mrs. Mallard, stands for a woman who is struggling internally and externally for freedom. After the sudden loss of her husband, Mrs. Mallard gets a taste of the freedom she was lacking in her marriage. Like Mrs. Mallard, women throughout history have struggled to find freedom and success away from their husbands. Chopin herself only became successful after the loss of her husband. In “The Story of an Hour”, Chopin shows women’s struggle for freedom during the Victorian period through Mrs. Mallard’s struggle for her own freedom.
The two texts convey the theme of freedom over confinement by the use of symbols. In The Story of an Hour, after Mrs. Mallard rushes to her room she sits down in a comfortable chair and “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were aquiver with new spring and life.” The open window symbolizes freedom and opportunities that await her now that her husband is gone. Everything she is experiencing while looking out the window suggests feelings of joy and
Kate Chopin is able to illuminate her stories with clever language and meaning. As well as an immense criticism as to how society oppresses the individual in the glorified institution of marriage. Through language, she is able to introduce the thought of deeper meanings. “The Story of an Hour” being a prime example of the individual that has a need for freedom for herself. Through symbolism and straightforward comments, the freedom that Mrs. Louisa Mallard is notable just as her marriage is oppressive.
The main theme in “The Story of an Hour” is a woman’s freedom from oppression. Mrs. Mallard does not react accordingly to the news of her husband’s death; in the third paragraph it states, “she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment.” After her initial wave of shock and sadness has passed, however, she becomes elated with the thought of finally being free of her husband. Originally, she is described as being “pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body” and having lines that “bespoke repression”; in an attempt to be a perfect wife to a man whom she did not even love, Mrs. Mallard has been masking her true self. Once she realizes that she has finally gained the freedom that she has been longing for, Mrs. Mallard begins to