Comparing Story Of An Hour And Desiree's Baby, By Kate Chopin

Through history, we have always yearned independence and equality as human beings. Undoubtedly, Kate Chopin is an extraordinary example She has landed a commendable place among American writers worthy of recognition. Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1850, Kate was raised by strong women who taught her the value of an education. Her family gave her a revolutionary vision and a feminist personality, but it was her talented and passionate skills in writing who gave her an individual voice. During her personal life, Mrs. Chopin built a family of her own, but “[she] became a widow at age thirty-two, with the responsibility of raising six children. She never remarried” (Koloski). Ten years after her husband’s death, Kate wrote a short story named “Desiree’s Baby.” A few years passed, and Chopin’s short story was finally published in Vogue among others. Its strong message about controversial issues such as racism and discrimination of females earned her acclamatory fame and acknowledgment. By the time of her death, Kate Chopin had already written about a hundred short stories and two novels. At the age of fifty-four, she passed away in her native St. Louis leaving her legacy to be studied and awarded for the rest of the world (Koloski). Until this day, “Desiree’s Baby” is one of the most distinguishable works of her career.

Many refer to Chopin’s stories as having a unique approach to worldwide issues and concerns. Chopin doesn’t want to change the world; all she wants is to describe it as best she could through her pieces of literature. She wants to expose the truth about the lives of many women and men in the nineteenth-century and how challenging it really is. She uses an infinite amount of literary devices, including imagery, to show the reality of society’s situation back in the 18th century. In, "The Story of an Hour,” her main idea/theme is the pure formality of Freedom and Confinement for women through marriage. She portrays that by creating imagery throughout the story. For example, she gives the reader a sense of Mrs. Mallard's new life through the view of an “open window.” She wants her audience to experience what Mrs.Mallard was so that the readers will fully understand the severity of women’s situations then and now who have to go through the pain that Mrs.Mallard did every single day. Bob Marley once said that, “Beginnings are usually scary, and endings are usually sad, but it’s everything in between that makes it all worth living,” and in Mrs.Mallard’s case, that reigns true. The emotions she feels when she liberates from her tight chains of marriage became the reason she wants to live and to keep moving forward. That feeling makes her life worth living again, but then disaster strikes and that feeling vanishes along with her living, breathing self. Mrs.Mallard didn’t die of ‘joy that kills,’ she dies of the darkness of her past consuming every last breath she takes, and then... she’s

Katherine O’Flaherty, later Kate Chopin, was born to Eliza and Thomas O’Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri on February 8, 1850 (Deter). Unfortunately, when Mrs. Chopin was four, her father died in a train incident leaving her under the care of three independent widows’- her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother (Deter). Mrs. Chopin’s great-grandmother, Victoria Verdon Charleville, directed her education, “giving her a taste of the culture and freedom allowed by the French that many Americans during this time disapproved of . . . through the art of storytelling” (Deter). Therefore, much of Mrs. Chopin’s success in writing about women pursuing morality, freedom, and political independence can be attributed to Victoria. Furthermore, the teachers at the St. Louis Sacred Heart Academy, a school Mrs. Chopin’s father had previously enrolled her in, “exposed her to Catholic teachings devoted to creating good wives and mothers, while also teaching independent thinking” (“Biography”).

Kate Chopin, a writer in the late 1800’s, focused on women’s rights and freedoms. In Chopin’s short story, The Story of an Hour, she uses Irony to convey the connection of emotional, physical and psychological freedom for the main character Mrs. Louise Mallard.

Have you ever wondered what the lifestyles of Nineteenth Century women were like? Were they independent, career women or were they typical housewives that cooked, clean, watched the children, and catered to their husbands. Did the women of this era express themselves freely or did they just do what society expected of them? Kate Chopin was a female author who wrote several stories and two novels about women. One of her renowned works of art is The Awakening. This novel created great controversy and received negative criticism from literary critics due to Chopin's portrayal of women by Edna throughout the book.

When one has been bound under someone’s will without knowing, once given freedom one may feel as if they no longer have to answer and or obey ever anyone ever again. This may bring upon a feeling of hope, joy, and or satisfaction. In the “The Story of An Hour” Kate Chopin introduced the character Mrs. Mallard, who was recently given the news that her husband was in a terrible accident and pronounced dead. Throughout the story Mrs. Mallard seemed to displayed many different emotions. Chopin develops suspicion in the passage by using the literary techniques such as paragraph structure, irony, and foreshadowing. Let’s first take a look at how the different structures of the passage really gave suspension to the story line.

Contrasting the strong and healthy male counterparts in the “Story of an Hour and “Desiree's baby”, the man in “The Storm”, “The Kiss” and “The unexpected” have characteristics that make them insufficient to fit the typical and patronized characterization of what a male character should be. Armand, from “Desiree’s Baby”, is described as “dark, [with a] handsome face” with and an “imperious and exacting manner”(2) which attributes to his striking dominance over Desiree’s monetary and emotional state. In contrast, Bratain from “The Story of an Hour”, who is described as “rather insignificant and unattractive” (1) ends up under Natalie's disposition. In the same context, Brently Mallard from the “Story of an Hour” returns home perfectly healthy

‘The Story of an Hour’ and ‘Desiree’s Baby’ by Kate Chopin have many differences and similarities. Both stories are written by the same author, but both are very different from each other. Chopin shows even though that she writes many stories they all can be different and have a some similarity. The women in the story are the main characters who have the most differences and similarities. They each had marriage issues and each issue was solved in a very extreme way.

The late 1800s were not a time of feministic literature being acceptable. The Victorian Era occurred at this time, where feministic ideas were not often written about, published, or even allowed to be talked about. During this time, men dominated and woman were expected to be submissive in all forms. Kate Chopin, however, took it upon herself to write short stories that went against these beliefs. Her stories show women challenging the restrictions of the traditional norms by fulfilling and satisfying their sexual desires. She used stories to change roles of women in society, the limitations and being oppressed. Kate Chopin uses her fiction to create social change.

¬¬Brianna Davis ENG 266 01 Dr. Suzanne Del Gizzo November 17, 2014 Research Paper Kate Chopin (1850-1904) was a writer in America, during the late 1800s. Chopin has written two novellas that have a female character that has a strong disbelief in the traditional roles that a patriarchal society would have presented them with during that period. The traditional role of a woman in the late nineteenth century was like a “stay-at-home-mother” in today’s society. The only difference is that a woman has more freedom in today’s society as opposed to in the nineteenth century women who, due to the extreme patriarchal society, had very little freedom. Most women were confined to the home and tending to their children as well as the home.

There are two types of irony in “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin. Situational irony is when unexpected acts occur, contrary to what a person is waiting. Also, dramatic irony that happens when the audience knows more than the speaker of what is expected. Situational irony was used when Brently Mallard who is supposed to be dead walks in and Mrs. Mallard is the one that dies. Furthermore, instead of Mrs. Mallard being sad for her husband’s death she is whispering about her freedom.

“The Story of an Hour,” is an ironic love story of a newly widowed woman finding a struggle for her own freedom. The story begins with a friend of Mr. Mallard, Richard, finding out that he has been killed in a train wreck. Mrs. Mallard’s sister Josephine hesitates to tell her of the news because she knows of her heart condition. Mrs. Mallard finds out that her husband has died; she is sad, but for only a briefs period of time. Something is different; Mrs. Mallard should feel sad and not filled with an inner sense of happiness. At this junction, Chopin begins to hint to the read that this woman is feeling happy about the death of her husband. It is almost like a burden has been lifted of her shoulders. The un-named woman goes to her room and sinks into a chair, only then does she start to realize her internal joy about the situation. She gets up from the chair and focuses her body towards the window and begins to notice all the wonderful things about life she never say before. "An open square before her house, the tops of trees that was all aquiver with the new spring life" (Chopin 158). This quote by Kate Chopin lets the reader know that the main character is now free

    Kate Chopin was an extraordinary writer of the nineteenth century. Despite failure to receive positive critical response, she became one of the most powerful and controversial writers of her time. She dared to write her thoughts on topics considered radical: the institution of marriage and women's desire for social, economic, and political equality. With a focus on the reality of relationships between men and women, she draws stunning and intelligent characters in a rich and bold writing style that was not accepted because it was so far ahead of its time. She risked her reputation by creating female heroines as independent women who wish to receive sexual and emotional fulfillment,

Kate Chopin is known as one of the greatest feminist authors of her time. She grew up around independent, widowed women: her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother. With her father’s death due to a train wreck, and her husband’s death from“swamp fever,” Chopin was left alone to support her six children. According to Nina Baym, the author of Chopin’s biography, influences from strong women in Chopin’s life led to why she wrote about desires, limited aspects of women’s lives, and how women began to challenge the male-dominated culture (550). A lack of men as chief figures in Chopin’s life prevented her from experiencing a tradition of submission by women to men. Additionally, many of Chopin’s works were influenced by realism and feminism.

The unique style of Kate Chopin’s writing has influenced and paved the way for many female authors. Although not verbally, Kate Chopin aired political and social issues affecting women and challenging the validity of such restrictions through fiction. Kate Chopin, a feminist in her time, prevailed against the notion that a woman’s purpose was to only be a housewife and nothing more. Kate Chopin fortified the importance of women empowerment, self-expression, self-assertion, and female sexuality through creativity in her literary work.