Women In Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

The short story “The Story of an Hour” was written by a 19th century feminist named Kate Chopin. The definition of a feminist in the urban dictionary is a person who believes that men and women are equal, and should be entitled to equal rights, equal treatment, and equal opportunity. Kate Chopin shows a little glimpse of what it was like for married women in the 19th century and how women had no rights and weren’t treated equally to men. A woman’s reputation and status were very important at the time and they had to complete their roles as obedient housewives and caretakers. The story reflects a woman who lost her husband and finally had a taste of freedom and later died when her freedom was taken from her. There are great differences between

Her mother had an arranged marriage and she enjoyed the freedom after her husband later died in a train accident when Chopin was only five years old. “The death of Chopin’s father, kept Chopin from growing up in a typical nine-tenth century patriarchal household.” (Tolentino) Women were controlled by the men in their lives and weren’t allowed to work, own land, or to have an education. “Their sole purpose in life is to find a husband, reproduce and then spend the rest of their lives serving him. If a woman were to decide to remain single, she would be ridiculed and pitied by the community.” (Smith) In Chopin’s life she lived her preteen years in a female-centered household. She lived at home with her mother, grandmother, and great- grandmother. “Her great-grandmother, Victoria Verdon Charleville oversaw her education and taught her French, music, storytelling, and the gossip on St. Louis women of the past.” (Wyatt) She lived

“When a women was married, all of her inheritance (if any existed) would belong to her husband. Her husband had rights to everything a woman had. This notion was supported by both the law as well as the marriage vows: “written into the marriage ceremony was a vow to obey her husband.” (Smith) The men were allowed to have an education, to vote, and to work, which was opposite to women’s laws. The husband would have more authority and power then the wife. Kate Chopin married Oscar Chopin, a son of a wealthy cotton-growing family in Louisiana, when she was twenty years old. “Oscar adored his wife, admired her independence and intelligence, and "allowed" her unheard of freedom.”(Wyatt) She married a man who believed in her dreams and didn’t treat her the way many men treated their wives at the time. Her husband later died from swamp