The Story Of An Hour And The Storm By Kate Chopin Comparison Analysis

In the 1890’s the roles of women in a marriage were very different then today. Chopin wrote her stories to point out the inequality within these marriages. In “The Story of an Hour” and “The Storm,” Kate Chopin takes these conventional roles of the time and turns them up side down. “The Story of an Hour” describes the death of a husband, and his wife, Louise Mallard’s reaction to the tragedy. In “The Storm”, a wife and mother, Calixta, has an affair with an ex-boyfriend during a particularly bad rainstorm. These women are both, in some way, unhappy in their marriages. Both of these stories describe two different women, but Chopin’s ideas of women’s sexuality and life outside of marriage bring them both together to represent one woman and idea

“The Story of an Hour” describes an unhappy wife’s sense of freedom when she learns her husband has died. This represents how a wife is considered a husband’s property and should have no life of her own outside of the marriage. This idea is also shown in “The Storm,” another wife, unhappy in her marriage, enters into an affair with an ex lover. As well as the idea of life outside marriage, this also brings in the idea of a women’s sexuality. At the time a women’s sexuality was never discussed and believed to not even exist. If the subject was brought up, the sexual desire was described as dangerous and something women should avoid at all costs. Chopin was concerned with how women were being treated within their marriages, the unequal balance of power between women and their husbands. Husbands could go to work and have their own lives outside of their life with their wives, while wives were forced to stay home, as they were not allowed to have jobs of their own. Both stories represent how this inequality is not right and women can have lives of their own; they are not the property of their