Kate Chopin As A Feminist Criticism Of Feminism

Kate Chopin was an American author who wrote novels as well as short stories. Her work was extraordinary and some of her greatest work was based on the feminist movement. Kate Chopin became known throughout the world as one of the most influential writers during the feminist movement. She has attracted great attention from scholars along with students, and her work has been translated into many different languages.

Lets say Brently had died that day what was Louise going to do? Its not like she can get a job and take care of her self and theirs two reasons why. One! She was a woman and they didn’t have any rights in those times. Black men were able to vote first than white women. That tells you a lot of how things were back then. The second reason is Louise had a heart condition and one had to be very careful with her. So I guessing she couldn’t do any hard labor or be stress. That’s why I don’t understand her. It might because I am male and I cant really see it from a female point of view. Maybe that’s why I can’t really see why Louise is full of joy because of her husband death. Also another thing I wonder was if she had heart attack because she was happy or sad that Brently was alive? I also wonder if Kate wrote this because she was going through personally?

Chopin's use of language effectively conveys the intensity of the emotions that overcome Louise. Repetition of the word "free" reveals the exaltation Louise experiences in being released from possession by her husband's will. The diction aptly portrays the significance, emotionally and physically, of Louise's transformation. Tumultuously, Louise's bosom, the seat of passion, rose and fell as the "monstrous joy" possessed her. As the elixir of life "courses" through her once weak heart, Louise's "pulses beat fast." When Louise's fancy runs "riot along those days ahead of her", the reader feels the excitement Louise feels. Through the image of Louise as a winged "goddess of Victory", her inner strength from triumph over repression becomes palpable. That strength is reaffirmed in Chopin's use of words that connote potency. Louise has a "clear and exalted perception" of herself.

In “The Story of an Hour”, although it doesn’t state that Louise is unhappy in her marriage, you can tell by her reaction to the news of her husband’s death, that she has longed for freedom. As soon as she receives the news, she

An intelligent woman, Louise knows that she must conform to societal expectations and act distraught at her husband’s death. This does not mean Louise is cruel; in fact Chopin writes that “she would weep again (Chopin 57)” when she saw her husband “fixed and gray and dead (Chopin 57).” She feels emotions deeply, and while she had not always loved him, she sometimes did, and knows she would mourn him later. But now, Louise mostly feels free to live her life the way she wants to. Upon the realization that her husband lives, Louise’s shock and despair is so intense, she dies of sorrow.

At the beginning of the story no one wished to tell Mrs. Mallard about the death of her husband due to her heart condition. Her heart trouble is a symbol for the way she feels crushed or hurt by her marriage. During this time period women were expected to live under the control of their husbands, so while being married to Brently, she begins to lose her identity. In the story, she is only referred to as Mrs. Mallard she isn’t referred to as Louise until after her husband’s death. She is an accessory to her husband is forced to live in the shadow of her husband and as a result of this she has lost herself over the years. Louise’s character is used as a symbol to represent the women of this time period and show the sacrifices they make for their husbands and the troubles that come along with the inequalities they experience in marriage.

This newfound freedom is in effect a new motivation for Louise. Before experiencing such freedom, Louise was petrified of the thought of life being long; now however, she felt herself wishing, even praying for life to be long. This is evidenced with the following quote, "She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long." (15). This depicts an ever embracing Louise, finally liberated of the powerful institution of marriage. What is more, this quote serves to further support the idea that Louise indeed felt trapped, she was unhappy and yet, the thought of her husband dying hadn't crossed her mind, only the relief from her own passing was her wish.

     I just accepted Louise's reaction to her husband's death, when the most unexpected happens; her husband is actually alive and he enters the room shocking everyone, and Louise especially, as she is shocked to death. The doctors say she died of joy, when the reader knows that she actually died because she had a drams of freedom and could not go back to living under her husband's will again. Then her dreams were shattered yet again due to this terrible man.

When these themes are combined, Louise experiences freedom and joy, if only for a moment. Calixta continues her life feeling happy and satisfied. Calixta decides to make her home a better one, but without any guilt. Louise and Calixta, like all women of this time period, were judged by themselves, their husbands and their neighbors. They felt boxed in and their own identities were never given the chance to mature. Women were judged on their purity, character and their domestic abilities. Women were denied their status as emotional and affectionate human beings, and they were denied their intellectual

In “The Story of an Hour” there is conflict that states why Louise would want to be free; the role of the wife versus the role of the husband. For instance, Louise struggled with her feelings about her marriage for years. Louise thinks "what could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being" (16). She admits that she did love her husband, but often she did not. On the other hand, the story suggests that her husband was

The beginning of the story sets the theme for the whole story. We are told about the heart condition that inflicts Louise. This is significant throughout the story. The heart condition is a symbolic way of describing her thoughts of oppression she felt about her marriage. She was trapped and isolated by the marriage. She felt the need to hide these feelings. Women of her era were supposed to be home and under their husbands command. The story has her going through this journey privately. That is significant in the fact that now in her husband’s passing, she will be alone. She will need to work through things by herself. She will be able to go through the whole process on her own, without being judged and persuaded to feel differently.

In this short story, Louisa’s internal independence plays a major role in who she is as a woman. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman describes Louisa as an introvert because she is someone who enjoys being alone. She spends fourteen years of her life being isolated at home, waiting for her fiancé to come back from his job in Australia. During those years, she learns how to be by herself through the hard times and the pleasant ones “Louisa’s feet had turned into a path, smooth maybe under a calm, serene sky, but so strait and unswerving that it could only meet a check at her grave, and so narrow that there was no room for any one at her side” (Freeman 66). This demonstrates how she is so use to not having anyone by her side. This is why she creates her own path through all the dark times she had to face on her own. In many ways this can foreshadow the ending of the short story. This shows how she always counted on herself and

By the repetition of the words as a reader we come to understand the meaning behind the story and how Louise actually felt towards her husband. The theme of the story is mainly the forbidden joy of independence. Due to that the story was written years ago where women were very dependent to their husbands Louise actual feelings of joy and happiness towards her husband death was forbidden by society during this

Contrary to some of her characters Kate was not an independent woman. She was only twenty years old when she got married, and in a period of seven years she had six children. In her early years Kate was always known as a "bright student and a great story teller", but her writing years did not came until the 1880's. (Wyatt) Kate had a hard life, and it is assumable that she wrote about her personal frustrations. Through her characters, Kate represented the idealisms of feminism.

The time frames presented by the two authors reveal the scene of women being considered as the weaker sex. The two stories, however, exemplify an inner longing of the feminine sex of independence and freedom from their husbands. It suggests an inherent ?soul? of the women to overcome the male domination by means of showing independence and the idea that they can live by themselves without the presence of husbands. In the life of Louise, it is her statement