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Story of an hour kate chopin analysis
Kate Chopin's feminist view
Story of an hour kate chopin analysis
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Kate Chopin tells the story of a woman with a heart condition; feminism is used as a critical approach to analyze the story of an hour; the Story of an Hour tells us about female opression in the nineteenth century. During that time, women were owned by their husband; they had little or no control over their lives. My initial thought was based on the actions and occurences in the story, and I feel that the author was a feminist. I did a little research on Chopin, but it didn't mention her being a feminist. When Chopin wrote the story, feminism was present. The main character in this story is Mrs Millard; a married woman who is trapped within the rules of the male dominated society (Chopin 279). After she heard about her husband death, she suddently becomes aware of the freedom and joy in the future (Chopin 279). As mentioned later in the story, “ a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely.” This indicate Mrs Mallard …show more content…
When Mrs Mallard sister, Josephine, tells her that he is dead, “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment.” (Chopin 278). This clearly state that Mrs Mallard is a caring person, and she loves her husband. Since she grieves for Brently, it shows that she has deep feelings for him. However, Mrs Mallard departs to her room and reflects on the situation; she sets her feelings aside. She said it over and under her breath: “ free, free, free!” She realizes that she does not have to share her life anymore. Mrs. Mallard looks to a future without a husband; this thought actually brought her happiness. She goes back to being emotional since she is exhilarated about her new lifestyle. “Free! Body and soul free!”(Chopin 206). Louise realizes she does not have to wait on her husband for anything. She can think for herself and say what
She whispers, “Free! Body and soul free!” (Chopin). Though her situation is sad, she does not have a remorseful response. She locks herself in her room and reflects upon her new reality. She instead comes to find a form of liberation for herself from her husband’s death. As she looks out the window, Chopin writes, “…she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window,” (Chopin). Chopin is stating Louie’s newly found greatness for her life. She is now able to live for herself and not behind her husband as society has told her. She can be different and gain more from her life now because she does not have to follow or live for a man, as many woman did in society. She feels exonerated from her bondage, which is marriage, and she now feels she can have a life for herself. In the end, her husband is actually found to be alive as he walks into the room. Chopin writes, “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills,” (Chopin). From seeing her husband, Louise dies. It was joy that had killed her. Readers can easily believe that she died because of the shock that her husband was still alive, but in reality she died from the loss of her new found greatness. The joy that killed her was her own
Chopin shows that some social pressures and responsibilities can in fact hold one back from their own potential as was Mrs. Mallard. Marriage was introduced as one of these social expectations, and Mrs. Mallard’s internal conflict shows the reader that sometimes it is hard to question these normalities. By creating such an internal visual of Mrs. Mallard, Chopin provides a tale of the true importance of seeing past socialistic deception, and choosing to find happiness beyond
Mrs. Mallard is the example of a typical housewife of the mid 1800’s. At the time, most women were not allowed to go to school and were usually anticipated to marry and do housework. During that time, the only way women could get out of a marriage was if they were to die or their husbands was to die. In that time period, the husband had control of all of the money, so it would not be wise if the wife were to leave the financial freedom that was provided by the husband. This is most likely why Mrs. Mallard never leaves her husband’s death, she is sad at first but then experiences an overwhelming sense of joy. This shows that she is not in a fulfilling marriage as his death means she will finally have own individual freedom, as well as financial freedom being the grieving widow who will inherit her husband’s wealth. In the words of Lawrence I. Berkove he states, “On the other hand, Chopin did not regard marriage as a state of pure and unbroken bliss, but on the other, she could not intelligently believe that it was desirable, healthy, or even possible for anyone to live as Louise, in the grip of her feverish delusion, wishes: to be absolutely free and to live totally and solely for oneself.” (3) Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to her husband’s death is Chopin’s way of expressin...
In conclusion, “The story of an hour” is a clear depiction that women status in the society determines the choices they make about their lives. In this work, Chopin depicts a woman as a lesser being without identity or voices of their own. They are expected to remain in oppressive marriages and submit to their husbands without question.
Kate Chopin wrote a short piece called “The Story of an Hour” about a woman’s dynamic emotional shift who believes she has just learned her husband has died. The theme of Chopin’s piece is essentially a longing for more freedom for women.
A Woman Far Ahead of Her Time, by Ann Bail Howard, discusses the nature of the female characters in Kate Chopin’s novel’s and short stories. Howard suggests that the women in Chopin’s stories are longing for independence and feel torn between the feminine duties of a married woman and the freedom associated with self-reliance. Howard’s view is correct to a point, but Chopin’s female characters can be viewed as more radically feminist than Howard realizes. Rather than simply being torn between independent and dependant versions of her personality, “The Story of an Hour’s” Mrs. Mallard actually rejoices in her newfound freedom, and, in the culmination of the story, the position of the woman has actually been elevated above that of the man, suggesting a much more radically feminist reading than Howard cares to persue.
Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour. Kate Chopin was a Victorian writer whose writing manifests her life experiences. She was not happy with the principles of the time, because women had fewer rights, and they were not considered equal to men. Afraid of segregation from society, people lived in a hypocritical world full of lies; moreover, Kate Chopin was not afraid of segregation, and used her writing as a weapon against oppression of the soul.
In Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour" the author portrays patriarchal oppression in the institution of marriage by telling the story of one fateful hour in the life of a married woman. Analyzing the work through feminist criticism, one can see the implications of masculine discourse.
We also learn in the first paragraph that she lives in a man's world, for, though it is her sister that tells her the news, it is her husband's friend who rushes over with the story. Even after his death, she is confined to the structures she adopted with her married life, including the close friends of her husband. It can also be assumed that Brently Mallard was fairly well off, because they live in a home with an upstairs, comfortable furnishings, and he has occasion and reason to travel. Also, they can afford a doctor's diagnosis that she has a "heart condition. " The most important idea that is conveyed in the story is summed up in two sentences, near the end of the story, "There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature.
Setting exists in every form of fiction, representing elements of time, place, and social context throughout the work. These elements can create particular moods, character qualities, or features of theme. Throughout Kate Chopin's short story "The Story of an Hour," differing amounts and types of the setting are revealed as the plot develops. This story deals with a young woman's emotional state as she discovers her own independence in her husband's death, then her "tragic" discovery that he is actually alive. The constituents of setting reveal certain characteristics about the main character, Louise Mallard, and are functionally important to the story structure. The entire action takes place in the springtime of a year in the 1890s, in the timeframe of about an hour, in a house belonging to the Mallards. All of these aspects of setting become extremely relevant and significant as the meaning of the story unfolds.
... This woman suffers a tremendous amount from the commitment of her marriage, and the death of her husband does not affect her for long. A marriage such as this seems so unbelievable, yet a reader can see the realistic elements incorporated into the story. This begs the question of how undesirable marriage was during Chopin’s life. The unhappiness felt by Mrs. Mallard seems to be very extreme, but Chopin creates a beautiful story that reflects upon the idea of marriage as an undesired relationship and bond to some women in the nineteenth century.
In "The Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin tells the story of a woman, Mrs. Mallard whose husband is thought to be dead. Throughout the story Chopin describes the emotions Mrs. Mallard felt about the news of her husband's death. However, the strong emotions she felt were not despair or sadness, they were something else. In a way she was relieved more than she was upset, and almost rejoiced in the thought of her husband no longer living. In using different literary elements throughout the story, Chopin conveys this to us on more than one occasion.
Freedom is one of the most powerful words in the world because of the feeling it gives people. This idea is evident in Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour.” In the story, readers witness the effect freedom can have when the main character, Louise, finds out her husband had passed away. The story begins when Louise’s sister informs her that her husband had been in a terrible accident and he was dead. Once she gets over the immediate shock, she finds herself overwhelmed with joy because she was free to live her life for herself and not her husband. At the end of the story, her husband walks through the front door, and Louise has a heart attack and dies. In the story "The Story of an Hour," Kate Chopin reveals the power of freedom through the use of diction, point of view, and setting.
Chopin describes her as a fragile woman. Because she was “afflicted with a heart trouble,” when she receives notification of her husband’s passing, “great care was taken” to break the news “as gently as possible” (1). Josephine, her sister, and Richards, her husband’s friend, expect her to be devastated over this news, and they fear that the depression could kill her because of her weak heart. Richards was “in the newspaper office when the intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of killed” (1). He therefore is one of the first people to know about his death. Knowing about Mrs. Mallard’s heart, he realizes that they need to take caution in letting Mrs. Mallard know about it. Josephine told her because Richards feared “any less careful, less tender” person relaying the message to Louise Mallard (1). Because of her heart trouble, they think that if the message of her husband’s death is delivered to her the wrong way, her heart would not be able to withstand it. They also think that if someone practices caution in giving her the message, that, ...
The first reader has a guided perspective of the text that one would expect from a person who has never studied the short story; however the reader makes some valid points which enhance what is thought to be a guided knowledge of the text. The author describes Mrs. Mallard as a woman who seems to be the "victim" of an overbearing but occasionally loving husband. Being told of her husband's death, "She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance." (This shows that she is not totally locked into marriage as most women in her time). Although "she had loved him--sometimes," she automatically does not want to accept, blindly, the situation of being controlled by her husband. The reader identified Mrs. Mallard as not being a "one-dimensional, clone-like woman having a predictable, adequate emotional response for every life condition." In fact the reader believed that Mrs. Mallard had the exact opposite response to the death her husband because finally, she recognizes the freedom she has desired for a long time and it overcomes her sorrow. "Free! Body and soul free! She kept whispering." We can see that the reader got this idea form this particular phrase in the story because it illuminates the idea of her sorrow tuning to happiness.