Story Of An Hour Essay On Women

In "The Story of an Hour" Chopin portrays marriage and the role and feelings of women in the 19th century as subordinate contributors to the husbands. The third word of the story is “Mrs.”, identifying the protagonist as a wife, defining her role and her life. She is also identified as weak and fragile.

Commonly explored throughout her works, the idea of marriage inhibiting a woman’s freedom is the driving force behind Kate Chopin’s contextual objections to propriety. In particular, The Awakening and “The Story of an Hour” explore the lives of women seeking marital liberation and individuality. Mrs. Chopin, who was raised in a matriarchal household, expresses her opposition to the nineteenth century patriarchal society while using her personal experiences to exemplify her feminist views.

In Kate Zernike's Article, Why Are There So Many Single Americans, it talks about how in America, there are many single men and women; a cause of that is, education. Kate Zernike uses the rhetorical elements of logos, audience, and allusions to make the reader understand her. Studies show that college-educated women are more likely to marry non-college-educated men. The number of people that are married or getting married has gone down in the last 45 years. The marriage rate has been decreasing equally for both men and women.

In “The Story of an Hour”, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and “Trifles”, the authors all question the institution of marriage through the emerging theme of the oppression of women. In each of these works, women are shown trapped in confining marriages. While marriage is supposed to be seen as one of the most beautiful and perfect sanctities life has to offer, these authors portray it as more of a bittersweet agony that women are forced to endure. Chopin, Gilman, and Glaspell use a combination of symbolism and perspective in their literature to bring about this theme of female oppression. With this theme, the authors cause the readers to take a more feminist perspective and question the institution of marriage through the eye of the average housewife of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

When first reading Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour," one may not typically be surprised at its ending, write it off as one of those creepy "back from the dead" horror stories and forget about it. There is more to this story than simply horror. The author is making a very strong, however subtle, statement towards humanity and women's rights. Through subtle symbolism, Kate Chopin shows how marriage is more like a confining role of servitude rather than a loving partnership.

According to popular belief, women need to be married to be truly happy. In society, marriage is the holy grail; the end-all-be-all of happiness. After all, a woman couldn’t possibly be content with independence! In both "The Storm" and "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin, the protagonists, Calixta and Louise, go against the norm; they share a commonality through their dislike of a confining, traditional marriage. While Calixta seeks out happiness through a one-night-stand in "The Storm," and Louise discovers it through the death of her husband in "The Story of an Hour," the misery both women share in marriage is revealed through Chopin's diction and imagery.

It is a very difficult task for women to live a content life while in a despondent marriage. Though it has been done, it is simply no easy task. In the short stories "Story of an hour", and "Astronomers Wife" Kate Chopin and Kay Boyle both suggests to their readers that a woman needs a man to connect with her physically to be happy. The two stories both share the thesis that women are being held back by their husbands and there is plenty of evidence to prove this. With Chopin's story taking place in the 50's, and Boyle's story taking place at the turn of the century, they encounter parallel situations with a time difference of almost 50 years.

Story of an hour conveys the feelings of many married women who may not be entirely unhappy in their marriage yet feel restricted in some way. They feel that they could have done so much more had they not married, if they had been without all these restrictions. They could spread their wings and fly to their favorite destinations if they had stayed unmarried. Marriage despite all its so-called bliss is still a very restrictive union that clips a woman's wings sometimes because of the children, sometimes because she is constantly reminded of her wifely and motherly duties and sometimes simply because her husband wouldn't approve.

In the short story "The Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin, the author, presents the reader with an obscure view of marriage. Chopin's main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard, experiences the excitement of freedom instead of the devastation of loneliness after she receives the news of her husband's death. Mrs. Mallard disturbingly finds out that Brently, her husband is still alive. She know knew that her only chance at freedom is gone. The disappointment instantly kills Mrs. Mallard. Published in the late 1800s, the overbearing nature of marriage presented in "The Story of an Hour" may very well reflect, but not restricted to, that era.

The relationship between men and women presented in the short story “The Story of an Hour”, is that men dominated society. A Woman’s freedom was nonexistent. Throughout this short story, women are presented as powerless and dependent while men were considered to be superior. Women were tied down through marriage, such as, having been expected of doing as the man pleased without having any say in the relationship. Through a feminist critical perspective, this short story supports a patriarchal society that is presented though marriage and women’s lack of freedom.

In, “The Story of an hour” by Kate Chopin is about the protagonist achieving her freedom as she has aspirations to become independent; which is her freedom. Through this short story, the protagonist Mrs. Mallard was confined by gender relations through marriage (Lucas). As noted in this short story there is gender inequality presented by both male and female in marriage, as both “believe(d) they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature” (Chopin 204). Furthermore, the quote as mentioned illustrates the gender inequality present in marriage as either male or female enforce their other partner to follow orders and obligations. Thus, because of the inequality in gender relations, confinement is felt by the other partner. Consequently, leading to a lack of aspirations and a feeling of imprisonment felt by the other partner.

As a convention, marriage for women has been a landmark of success. It is necessary for a woman to enter into marriage to be recognized by the society as successful. The requisites of marriage such as love and affection are often neglected in exchange for some financial value imposed by the husband. In The Story of an Hour it is exemplified in ?a heart trouble? of Mrs. Mallard while in The Girls in Their Summer Dresses points out to Frances? longing to keep her husband in spite of her doubtful interest upon her.

I agree with the author Aja Gabel that marriages are weakening because of the women’s liberation movement. Women are becoming a main stream economic provider in the family household. Many corporations now have women holding high positions for the company that they work for. For example, in January 2014 General Motors announced that Marry Barra will be taking over the CEO role for that company. In fact, several other corporations such as Hewlett Packard, Lockheed Martin, Xerox, DuPont, General Dynamics, PepsiCo, and Yahoo all have women as their CEO’s. It is

I swung my legs, my knuckles turned white as I gripped the cold metal of the arm rest. My Vans made scuffs into the patterned carpet. A girl and her father sat to my right. She was hunched over, glaring above her baggy sweatshirt as her father whispered something in her ear. She scowled and slouched a little less into the cold chair. The room was sterile aside from a wicker basket full of dejected toys, slumped over seemingly in sadness caused by disuse. I glanced up to see shelves above the basket piled with faded magazines. The worn issues of “Women’s Health” and “Seventeen” curved over the edge of the shelf and they looked like they wanted to escape just as much as the girl. Above this, three immaculately clean and pristine gold gilded

They see what their daughter, sister, aunt, mother, cousin, sister in law, grandmother, went through in marriage and or in divorce and they say no way does marriage work and no way am I doing it.