Kate Chopin College Essays Samples For Students

The 20th century was a remarkable period for many women who are fed up with the discrimination they faced based on gender. Females in the previous centuries were confined to the spheres of their homesteads and not allowed to participate in public activities. The patriarchal perceptions dominated the thoughts of most Americans. The work of Kate Chopin, a renowned feminist, motivated woman to evaluate their situations critically so that they could realize the unfair burden society placed on them. One of the pieces she wrote was the Story of an Hour. Succinct analysis indicates that Chopin tackled complicated issues ...

In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, describes the last hour in the life of Louise Mallard, who is trapped in an unhappy marriage with a husband she did not really love, but has a brief moment when it appears that freedom is at hand thanks to his untimely death. After all, this was an era when divorce was rare and social, economic and educational opportunities for women were very limited. All of Chopin’s women characters in her fictional work also shared a strong desire to escape from the constraints of Victorian marriage and family life. They were often based ...

Kate Chopin was born in Missouri and she has represented the rebellious spirit of her era. She led an unconventional lifestyle, which was depicted in all her writings and was the kind of woman who dared to stand up for her true beliefs and ideas. According to her biographers and literary critics, ‘Kate Chopin’s writing style was a result of her passionate love for the writing style of Guy de Maupassant.’(1996, Le Marquand). Chopin was influenced by Guy de Maupassant who wrote about people’s everyday lives, but she went a step forward. She created her own unique way ...

Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida are key pioneers of revolutionizing language theory by a new understanding of writing. Jacques Lacan psychoanalysis concepts touch on the mirror stage, the Real, the imaginary and symbolic in his psychoanalysis advanced symbolic order which dwells on the imaginary that is deception, imagination and images. Lacan gives a linguistic dimension to the symbolic order since language has imaginary and symbolic connotations (Naas, 23). He argues that if the signifier is the aspect on which the symbolic is founded on then the signification and signified are the constituents of the imaginary order. The psychoanalysis that the French ...

In “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin presents readers with a view of marriage that is not very commonly heard of these days. After learning that her husband has died, Mrs. Louise Mallard, the main character of the short story, experiences the delight and glee of freedom instead of the depression and sorrow of having lost her life partner. Chop has chosen such a structure for her short story that seems to be well suited for its subject matter. The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin is one of her most famous work because of how she is able ...

It needs to be taken into account that literature goes on to reflect the true nature of the society of this world. The stalwart literary artists have for long engaged in portraying the dynamics of the interpersonal relationships in their works, and the theme of domination and its subsequent subversion has come to find commonality in the works of many literary artists of the world. If one closely introspects on some specific works, it would be easier to gauge how the thematic content of domination has been portrayed in the literary texts over the span of the history of ...

One can take into consideration the famous song, “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga that can be related to the essence of the course of study. This song sung by the famous singer leaves a lasting impression with the lyrics and the video that can very well be understood as a powerful expression of female sexuality and desires. If one analyzes the content of this song with relation to the societal ideology of patriarchy, it can be found to be a subversion of the imposed passivity on the women folks. The song is an energetic expression of the desires and ...

‘Desiree’s baby’, written by Kate Chopin, is one of the most anthologized and critically acclaimed short stories of the nineteenth century. First published in the year 1893, the story captures with vivid detail, the societal attitudes that prevailed during the dawning years of that century. It is set in the days where rich, White, plantation owners, had slaves working for them tirelessly, yet did not have the heart or will, to treat the blacks equally, despite the many laws that legally abolished slavery. African Americans were not the only ones, being discriminated and marginalized, but the society of ...

Literature

The story of an hour centers on a young woman who is married, and it is indicating her reaction to her husband’s death in a train accident (Chopin n.d). The cat in the rain is also a short story of an American wife who is suffering from the mistreatment she is receiving from her husband. She figures herself in the cat that she sees in the rain thus goes ahead to look for that Cat (Hemingway, n.d). This paper will discuss how the two authors use contrasting or similar elements of fiction, the impact of those items on ...

The story "The Story of the Hour" written by Kate Chopin presents new and revolutionary view of marriage near the end of the nineteenth century. Through the character of Mrs. Mallard, Kate Chopin presents the position of a married woman trapped into marriage and the possibility of different life when a husband is out of the picture. Symbols of heart and open windows and the use of irony as a powerful literary tool are dominant in this story and they give its readers an unexpected ending.
The story is set in Mrs. Mallard's house. The writer explores reflections of ...

Musings and Longings

She sat quietly. She looked calm. She was all drenched.
The park was empty. It was raining heavily. The leaves were all wet.

The sudden rain was livening after the long summer.

A bird had just flown back to the nest atop that big tree.
She was happy that no one could see her tears. She wanted to look calm.

She was happy that no one could know she was broken from inside.

She thought of the baby. She thought of her life. She wanted to cry her heart out.
But, that would make her look weak. Although alone, she wanted to look strong.
She is now a killer. She didn’t want to. But she did. He wanted her to.
...

After the American Civil War, the South lay prostrate before the specter of the Lost Cause. There was a general poverty, both economic and personal. The war had had such a devastating effect that the intellectual capacity of a whole region shuddered, moaned. There could not be a more devastating occurrence to Southern pride than the ignoble defeat of the entire culture. The extent to which the South declined is documented in its literature. An examination of Southern literature during and after the Civil War provides a perspective on how far down the South had been driven before it ...

The short story “Desiree’s Baby” was published in 1893, in “Vogue”. Its first title was “The Father of Desiree’s baby” to focus on Armand’s identity and origin. The story touches important issues that plagued the South of that time such as racism, the position of women, gender inequality. “Desiree’s Baby” is one of only two major stories Chopin set in antebellum Louisiana, portraying woman character whose life is ruined by a cruel and deeply-seated racism, but intellectual readers of the day would have been aware of the complex cultural history in the background of the ...

Gender is defined as the activities, roles and behavior assigned in a social place with reference to women and men. Though it is normally confused with sex, it is not. Sex is the biological issue of whether a person is male or female. Gender on the other hand is the society’s code of behavior as to how a man or woman is supposed to behave and act. These distinct given roles are what give rise to inequalities. This difference is that which gives systematical favor to one group and disfavors another. This may occur in terms of health services, job opportunities, ...

- Brief Introduction
- Analysis of A Clean and Well-Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway
- Analysis of The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
- Analysis of The Storm by Kate Chopin
- Conclusion
Within the story, lies the dark theme of death and loneliness which is portrayed by the old customer who only exists in despair despite his wealth and providing a brief description of the author’s life, having a physical defect (deafness) and living in old age. The old and the young waiter were the author’s representation of himself as a youth ...

The story of Louse Mallard, who dies of a heart condition from the surprise showing up of her presumed dead husband suggests a succesful conspiracy to cover up major issues in their marriage. The fact that Louise died concealing the abusive nature of her husband reveals the dreadful reality of women surviving in abusive relationships and opt to conceal the truth. This paper seeks to analyze Allen Stein's Women and Autonomy in Kate Chopin's short Fiction and Joseph Rossenblum's The story of an hour.
Allen supports Kate Chopin efforts in revealing the reality of difficulties that women encounter in the ...

Literature possesses a vast territory for expressing meaningful human feelings, abstract emotions, or themes. Desperation and comfort is a common theme in literature, encompassed in short stories, poems and dramas and reflected differently through the mechanisms of each literary genres, the style of each literary piece or the personality of the authors.
Various literary genres like short stories, poems or dramas, possess their unique mechanisms for reflecting the theme of desperation and comfort. Looking at Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”, the poet uses techniques specific to poetry space for transmitting his desperate adversity to resisting ...

Two women, two different stories, two destinies. Calixta and Desiree had one important common goal in their lives – happiness of their children and husbands. In the short stories “Desiree’s Baby” and “The Storm”, Kate Chopin showed us the attitude of women of those years to the marriage, to their own happiness and what was the life like for a young ordinary woman. In this essay I would like to compare two absolutely different but in some ways similar situations and bitter experience of Calixta and Desiree.
The story “Desiree’s Baby” shows us the racial prejudice and how ...

Kate Chopin’s, the story of an hour, is well crafted in terms of its plot, content, and character choice. However, one of the overarching literary devices that Chopin employs is irony. First of all, the story begins with a friend contemplating on how to explain the news of the death of Mr. Mallard to his wife. Mr. Richard struggles to make sure that the news of death is unveiled to Mrs. Mallard in a way that it would not cause harm to her due to her heart condition. Josephine who is the Mrs. Mallard’s sister is used as the ...

Compare and Contrast

Introduction
Marriage is an essential component of many societies, as it involves the union between two people in love with one another who would eventually create a family. As a form of social organization, marriage has become the subject of several controversies, with some outside of the purpose of romantic union. Notable pieces of literature attest to that fact, and this study aims to construct an analysis between two literary works – The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin and A Marriage Proposal by Anton Chekhov, with both literary works establishing that marriage, as a social practice, has found associations with ...

It is human nature to personify objects, events, and things which have a great impact upon our lives. For example, people often name their cars or attribute the outcome of sporting events in which they are merely spectators to something they did or did not do (wearing a “lucky” article of clothing, for example). In Kate Chopin’s turn-of-the 20th Century short story “’The Storm”, the storm is used as not only a backdrop for the events it would precipitate, but as both a metaphor for and a personification of them, as well.
The story has five human characters. Bobinot and Bibi are ...

The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin is full of irony and incongruity in the feelings of the main character Mrs. Mallard. Marriage is shown as constraining and her desire for freedom and independence is expressed vividly. Her public demonstration of sadness at her husband’s death stands in stark contrast to the ‘monstrous joy’ she feels at the thought of having a ‘Body and soul free!’
The narrator describes the emotions of Mrs. Mallard with powerful and vibrant words. The character has a deep inner life with a lot of desires, feelings and emotions. The thoughts she has in ...

“The Awakening” was written in an age when women allow society to dictate how they should behave and feel. In one summer Edna changed from a woman voided of feelings to one overwhelmed by her feelings, so much so that she feels she could no longer live in this society.

“The Awakening” is a book written long before its time; it is a satire of the prudish New Orleans’ society of the nineteenth century. In his essay, Robert Cantwell says: “The book was banned from library circulation, and the author refused admittance to the St. Louis Arts Society. Mrs. Chopin was disgusted, ...

Literary Comparison of The Story of an Hour and The Necklace

The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin and The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant are both short stories associated with the trials and tribulations of marriage, as well as love. Both stories also deal with the emotional and physical changes that are attributed to personal life changing events. In The Story of an Hour, the plot revolves around a woman, Louise Mallard, and her reaction to her husband’s death. In The Necklace, the plot is based upon a married couple M. Loisel and his wife Mathilde, and the turmoil a necklace has caused them. Although there are similarities in the ...

Katherine O’Flaherty was born in Missouri in August 1904. Kate was a renowned novelist and short story writer whose works reflected the status of the society during her time (Chaeyoung, 59). In The Story of the Hour, Kate weaves a tale of a woman who is mistakenly told that her partner had perished in an accident. Interestingly, the woman is euphoric at the thought of her husband’s death and feels physically and psychologically free. However, her joy was curtailed when her husband comes home one hour later alive and well. In fact, he had not even heard ...

Composed by Kate Chopin a short story Désirée’s Baby presents passage from life of a girl without a name who finds her love and her bitter end. Désirée was found by Valmondé a wealthy and aristocratic family from the antebellum South who adopts her despite that fact that Monsieur and Madame Valmondé do not know girl`s origin. She is loved and admired not only by her new parents but also by Armand Aubigny a representative of another influential and wealthy Creole family in Louisiana. It seems that Désirée is surrounded by ...

Tragedy is the outcome of a story when the protagonist loses the battle against their opponents in the end. “Desiree’s Baby” is a short story written by Kate Chopin which deals with the theme of racial prejudice. Desiree is an adopted girl who marries Armand who is an aristocrat in Louisiana. They get married and she gives birth to a child who is a mulatto. Since her ancestry is unknown being adopted, Armand is convinced that the Desiree is of black heritage and he disowns both his wife and his son. The tragedy in this story is related ...

“The storm” by kate chopin

The character of Calixta is the protagonist or main character of the story although she appears to be visible only in a few of the pages in the novel. However, the main bulk of her character comes from her personal point of view about love and life. I have chosen the character of Calixta because of her mysterious character that was slowly revealed until the end of the story. Calixta’s character is interesting because there more to her than what meets the eye.
In the beginning, the audience perceives Calixta’s character to be ordinary in the sense ...

The first wave of feminism swamped the world in the second half of the twentieth century and was swooped up by a great amount of women, who finally got the opportunity to sound off their discontents and complains. The supporters and mediators of feminism appeared from different fields of activities and of various strata of society. As the issue of feminism gathered momentum, it fell under thorough research and detected that feminist ideas appeared centuries ago and can be found in literary works of unrecognized authoresses and poetesses. Kate Chopin was one of them, who cherished feminist spirit in ...

Introduction

Desiree's baby is a short story by Kate Chopin, which talks about the racial discrimination of the black people in America. The story aims at showing the disadvantages of racial discrimination and the need to fight against racism in generations. It has shown the effects of racism through generations and how it affects the living of many who have a mixed race. It expresses pain, rejection and isolation. The black color is tainted with slavery, and the people lack respect. Desiree's baby was black, yet his parents were white leading to an array of questions. Who among the parents ...

Comparison between that The Storm by Kate Chopin and “My Life I had Stood with a Loaded Gun” by Emily Dickenson
Despite the fact that The Storm by Kate Chopin and “My Life I had Stood with a Loaded Gun” by Emily Dickenson seem to have nothing in common at first glance. If a person analysis the works a little closer, they can see that they have the following connections.

In The Storm the story tells of an extra-marital affair during a storm. The passion of the lovers is unbridled and dangerous just like the storm. While in “My ...

The point of view is a perspective from which the author chooses a narrator to tell a story. The third-person narrators are usually observers but not characters in the story. Kate Chopin in “The Story of an Hour” uses the third-person omniscient narrative, which captures the reader and makes him sympathetic to Louise Mallard. The reader has a possibility to see how the woman interacts with other characters, her thoughts, and feelings. Indeed, the omniscient narrator is able to tell the story of Louise’s hour of evolution and freedom but the happiness lasted only for an hour before ...

Introduction

Individuals read stories and books since they are interested in what is contained in those books and stories. Stories make us love or hate characters, provide us details, and build up to the point where we get the climax. "The Story of an Hour," by Kate Chopin gives us the details all through the story to set up sudden climax of Mrs. Mallard death. For this reason, this essay examines the sympathetic character of Mrs. Mallard as presented by the author in the short story.

After reading this epic short story, I think that Mrs. Mallard qualifies ...

Introduction

This paper aims to capture the possible conflicts in the literary styles used by the author in writing her book. The degree of agreeableness of the plot and the style of writing will also be considered. Criticism that the author was subjected to shall also be captured. The paper will start by outlining the context in which the narrative was written and will proceed to give a critical view of the plot, and the style employed by Kate in writing her novel.
Kate grew up in an environment surrounded by women, both at school with the nuns and at ...

The Storm is a story Written by Kate Chopin. The time at which the story was set is in the 19th century. The story was set in Louisiana and in real sense; Louisiana is a place that is best known for violent storms. The story is about is a confrontation of the theme of femininity and complexities of the married people in the storm. The storm is used throughout the story, and it only ends after the characters, Alcee and Calixta’s sexual encounter, which brings out the theme of femininity, and sexual desires.
Kate Chopin opens her story with the ...

There are various approaches of women and feminism in the literature of the early 20th century. For depicting the feminine psych, authors use various literary devices for allowing readers to enter the mind of their characters. Susan Glaspell’s “Trifle” uses symbolism and irony for resenting her character, Mrs. Wright and for illustrating her hardships that drove her to murdering her husband. Moreover, after studying Glaspell’s “Trifle”, the manner in which she develops the narration indicates that she considers Mrs. Wright’s action as justified. Mrs. Wright, a character of the early 20th century, resembles Kate Chopin’s Mrs. ...

Kate Chopin's short story "The Story of an Hour" is concerning an unhealthy wife who for a short time supposes her husband is deceased and visualizes a complete new life of independence for herself. The speaker’s portrayal of Mrs. Mallard gives you an idea about someone who removes off the ideas of love and even the greatest of marriages for the wonderful thought of pure independence. This paper provides the complication of the concept of Freedom for Mrs. Mallard as the lead character of the story. It gives the impression like an awful thing to Mrs. Mallard, who's constrained in ...

American Literature, Essay Exam

1. Mark Twain has made use of various features of Local Color such as in his book Huckleberry Finn. Local color is a style used in writing to show the features and peculiarities of the people in a given locality. The first feature is that of narration which makes use of a narrator who in most cases is educated to draw a distinction between urbanized audience and the locals. An example is when Huck displays moral maturity by saying, “what’s the use you learning to do right when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong” ( ...

Kate Chopin, the author of the short stories, "The Storm" and "Story of an Hour," was a tremendously forward-thinking and feminist author - in both of these tales, marriage is viewed as a restrictive hold on the women who are the subjects of each story. In "The Storm," the desperate Calixta temporarily frees herself of her stifling marriage by engaging in a passionate love affair with a paramour from her past who finds himself in her house in the wake of a nasty storm. Meanwhile, in "Story of an Hour," a woman discovers that her husband has passed away, and starts to have fantasies about ...

I have chosen to examine four short stories whose characters are people with physical markings or mental disorders. People who have these traits are unusual and regarded as odd by "normal" people. Usually, they develop some mental powers and become able to achieve much more than people who have neither physical nor mental problems. Maybe these "marked" people achieve success because they believe in themselves, whereas, "normal", healthy people tend to be paradoxically more self-conscious which hold them back. However, they are always there to judge the challenged ones. The stories that were particularly interesting to me are: Roman ...

In “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin strongly employs symbolism throughout the story to intensify the drama. The symbols fit the subject matter of the story perfectly. The short story contains several symbols that make the readers feel a sense of comfort, wellness, and wonderfulness in their mind, somewhat the same feelings that overcome Mrs. Mallard when she learns of the “news of her husband's death.” The symbols in the short story embody Mrs. Mallard’s sense of freedom from the moment she murmurs “free” to herself and intensify the story’s twist ending.
The very first symbol ...

Essay 2

1 Literal borrowing is one of the issues that are discussed by people in the literal world on a daily basis. Authors borrow ideas for their literal works to improve on the quality of work presented. Borrowing of intellectual material can be good or bad. Good borrowing of literal material is an act that almost all researchers perform. It is perfectly genuine if done according to the standard guidelines and the act is documented correctly (Yu and Peter 45). Bad literal borrowing also known as plagiarism is a wrong act since the author copies the works of another author to a wide ...

These two masterpieces “the Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’ Conner are a real picture of the time period when it was written. A Good Man is Hard to Find, is an example of gothic literature which portrays the background of slavery and Civil War, whereas, the historical background of The Story of an Hour is based on women’s behavior and the female desire for independence which was more preferred than love and marriage. It was a time when a typical American woman of the nineteenth century would be a ...

The setting of “The Storm” is a small town, wherein Calixta, a good, virtuous wife, is caught in a violent storm that keeps her inside and away from her husband. Because of the violent, primal nature of the storm that surrounds her house, Calixta begins to come out of her shell and welcome the beauty and sensuality that has been missing for so long from her life. The storm becomes a metaphor for her affair, and the effect it has on her marriage (the town). In this essay, the connection between the storm and the events of the Kate Chopin short story will ...