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 that involved the interplay of women’s freedom, marriage, and love through the short narrative. This essay develops the feminist ideas portrayed by Kate Chopin in the Story of an Hour.
The characterization in the story is about a supposedly widowed lady called Louis Mallard as she experiences her last hour in life. Upon discovering the death of her husband, Louis is bombarded with conflicting emotions of exultation from bondage and grief for the loss. Freedom takes precedence over the other feeling. As depicted from the most successful brief narratives, the story concludes with a dramatic twist. Mrs. Mallard comes to realize that her spouse did not die shattering the vision that she had laid out of a new life leading to her tragic death. The author portrays Louis as a sympathetic person with insight and strength. The character understands the world in a different way since the loss of loved one does not bring despair rather it presents an opportunity to break free of the blind persistence (Chopin, 80).
American wives in the 20th century had a legal bound to their husband’s status and power. Once they became widows, they did not bear the role of following or finding a spouse. Instead, they acquired legal recognition and full control of their lives. From the story, Louis’s husband seemed to have established a relationship with clear intentions. Unfortunately, any human interconnection with such intensity and permanence can also create limiting factors for one of the parties. Mrs. Mallard views solitude as the only measure that can ensure that she gets a free choice. The conversion that Kate Chopin exhibits in the story is that a person’s need for independence can go beyond marriage and love. Notably, the name mallard means a wild duck and is used to signify freedom. Also, Louis Mallard gains her inspiration from the environment that beckons her to grasp the independence that comes with the loss of her husband (Chopin, 81).
According to Chopin (81), the heart problem that Mrs. Mallard has makes it difficult for her sister and husband’s friend to break the devastating news. However, if the condition is viewed from another perspective instead of the medical sense, the heart issue can be visualized as an outcome of psychological repression and not physiological factors. The happiness that killed the woman was ironic since Louis experienced joy and sudden despair upon seeing Brently. She realized that regaining her spouse made the sense of freedom fade. The fundamental point that Kate Chopin develops in the Story of an Hour is the struggle females underwent during a marriage. Women did not receive any respect and were expected to tend to their spouses and serve their requirements constantly. They did not have the life they desired since their activities revolved around those of their husbands.
Louis is utilized as a round protagonist or a character that changes throughout the narrative. The emotional variations she experiences indicate that women are emotional beings due to the dilemmas they have to undergo in their lives. By conceptualizing on the domestic sphere that women control, Chopin portrays them as people who do not have the ability to embrace their feminine desires and ideas. The writer’s wish is for females to have their say by not being tied down to the patriarchal community. The theme used in the passage of female suffocation was an image of the cultural changes occurring around Kate Chopin. The establishment of separate life spheres where women worked within while the men outside disintegrated in the 20th century. The females were no longer satisfied with the responsibility of a domestic angel; they became more forceful, educated, and visible to the outside environment (Tandon, 46).
Kate Chopin is an example of the differences in the atmosphere during the 20th century. She began to formulate her conventions in life such as dressing differently and smoking cigarettes. Her surroundings created a tension that made her begin to write about the liberation of the female gender. The narrative is a revelation that women were starting to see that the society they lived had a problem and was the reason they received fewer rights and freedoms compared to the men. Female readers who come across the story, as well as other revolutionary narratives written by Kate Chopin, are influenced by the writings to think in new and critical ways concerning their status in the community. The Story of an Hour carries a unique reality that evaluates a moment in a female’s life when the barriers are shattered, and the self-conscious process begins. A woman can now fulfill her desires without pressure from a man (Mousli and Roustang-Stoller, 23).
Work Cited
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” A Prentice Hall Pocket Reader: Literature. Ed. Mary McAleer Balkun. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 79-81, 2005.
Mousli, Beatrice and Roustang-Stoller, Eve-Alice. Women, Feminism, and Femininity in the 21st Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Tandon, Neeru. Feminism: a paradigm shift. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 2008.
