Story Of An Hour Patriarchy

The Story of an Hour is short, yet, contains important examples of gender roles in marriage. They are important because they represent how women felt married in the 19th century due to male dominance that manifested throughout marriages all over the world. In The Story of an Hour, Mrs. Mallard is a wife that is, at first, seen as distraught, because of her husband’s death. She starts to cry and run to her room, to soon be lifted with the joy that she is now free. It is clear that she felt trapped in the marriage and is now happy that there is no one controlling her any longer. Mrs. Mallard is a prime example of women in marriages in the 19th century, and even some today. Unfortunately, they have to experience sexism from their husbands. Women are dominated by men in marriage and are expected to acquire the stereotypical gender roles.

Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour”, uses the death of Mrs. Mallard’s husband to reveal the female oppression that took place in their marriage. Chopin uses a great deal of symbolism, particularly in the open window, to reveal the theme of the oppression of women in this story. Chopin chose to begin the story with “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was conflicted with heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death” (Chopin 555). While the reader assumes that Mrs. Mallard has a medical heart condition, anyone who has done a close read of this story can assume that Chopin chose “heart trouble” to symbolize the conflicting feelings Mrs. Mallard

One of the first internal conflict Mrs. Mallard faces is she is not sure how she to act when she finds out the news of her husband’s death. During the time period of which the shirt story takes place, women supposedly owed everything to their husbands, so for Mrs. Mallard to now be a widow, the news should have been heart breaking and life shattering. Louise does not act the way women of the time are “supposed” to act. She is still is shocked by the news, “she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms” but then rushes upstairs to lock herself in her room (Chopin 54). I think Chopin started off the story with the

In the short story “The Story of an Hour” written by Kate Chopin, the character Mrs. Mallard is a grieving wife who pictures her life by herself. While grieving her husband’s death she is thinking about being free and independent. Mrs. Mallard and women in the days where they depended on their husbands for everything, while they stayed home and took care of the house could now live for herself. “But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would be hers absolutely.” (p. 548) She was a sympathetic character who loved her husband, but is ready to be free. Mrs. Mallard’s reactions to Mr. Mallard’s death is justified by the way she grieves for him. I am for her and the way she is dealing with the loss of her husband, even though in the end it kills her.

Everyone who reads a story will interpret things slightly different than the person who reads it before or after him or her. This idea plays out with most every story, book, song, and movie. These interpretations create conflict and allow people to discuss different ideas and opinions. Without this conflict of thought there is no one devoting time to debate the true meaning of a text. Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” tells about a woman who is informed of her husbands death, processes the emotions, and becomes content with this new status as an individual person – losing all the expectations that society expected her to live by within a marriage. This story however is written in a way that the reader has the final interpretation of the text. There are many different interpretations on not only the reason for the main character’s death, but also on the overwhelming emotions that she faces.

In the short story “The Story of an Hour” written by Kate Chopin, the character Mrs. Mallard is a grieving wife who pictures her life by herself. While grieving her husband’s death, she is thinking about being free and independent. Mrs. Mallard and women in the days where they depended on their husbands to provide for the family, while they stayed home and took care of the house. “But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would be hers absolutely.” (Chopin 548) She was a sympathetic character who loved her husband but is ready to be free. Mrs. Mallard’s reactions to Mr. Mallard’s death is justified by the way she grieves for him. The way she is dealing with the loss of her husband is admirable, even though in the end it kills her.

Mrs. Mallard finds out that her husband has just died, "she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment." The character of Josephine is there to represent her conflict against society. As the story starts up, she as Mrs. Mallard turns to her sister Josephine and weeps in her arms after hearing the sudden news of her husband's death. This is her acknowledging the grief that society expects her to feel. Her openness to Josephine represents the acceptance that came with acting in accordance with what society expected. Mrs. Mallard displays her strength, “When the storm of grief … away to her room alone.” The fact that she does not bring Josephine with her implies the conflict that is about to take place." Josephine is the social norms, assuming that she is weak without her husband by her side. Mrs. Mallard's isolation from this assumption represents that she has strength and can stand on her own. This expected strength is confirmed as Chopin writes, "Josephine was kneeling … lips to the keyhole”, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! … before you make yourself ill." The closed door to Josephine shows her decision to close her

Some people believe that once they marry they are giving up their freedom. In some cases, this is true, especially in the late 19th century. Woman during this period were marrying as young as 15 years old and were marrying men well into their 30s. This caused a lack of communication and love between a married couple and usually resulted in the man having control over the woman. The idea of men having control over women in marriage can be seen in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour.” In this short story, Louise Mallard learns of her husband’s death due to a fatal train accident. Sad and alone at first, Mrs. Mallard sits in her room contemplating how she will live now that her husband is gone. Soon her emotions are flipped and Mrs. Mallard

In addition to a restricted setting, Chopin expresses a theme of marriage confinement through the portrayal of Louise’s epiphany and her death that soon follows. As Mrs. Mallard is contemplating her feelings in regards to her husband’s passing, she comes to the eventual conclusion that she is indeed saddened but, “Then she realizes she has a newfound freedom: ‘There would be no one to live for during these coming years; she would live for herself’. She is ecstatic” (Mayer 94). As a result of Brently’s death, Louise has been released by the bonds of marriage and is now free to live as she sees fit, not by what her husband deems acceptable. It should be noted, however, that Mrs. Mallard is not in high spirits because her husband has died; she did in fact love him at times.

Louise Mallard is the protagonist of The Story of an Hour. The entire story is about her preservation. Chopin portrays Mrs. Mallard as a woman who is in deep suffering. She is not only suffering from a marriage she is not happy with, but she is also suffering from her medical condition. As if she had not suffered enough, she also puts a threat to her own life. We see this when Josephine is knocking on her door while she refuses to open it (Chopin). What is unknown to Josephine however is that her sister is in fact not suffering but savoring the moment.

Women’s lack of social contact had been a notable fact in nineteenth century. Back then, women were only allowed to stay at home and do their housework. They were locked by “the closed door,” while only men had the “latchkey” to open it left their houses without anyone’s permission (“The Story of an Hour” 76). Even though women “wish” they “could do such things” which are to see the outside world, men responded that “It ain’t the right kind of a life for a woman” (“The Chrysanthemums” 200). Once women were married, they would not have too many chances to associate with people besides her family. Moreover, most of the time they need to obey her husband, so they are eager to live independently. In these two stories, John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums,”

Chopin also includes an example of what could set Mrs. Mallard into a fatal heart attack, when she mentions how Mrs. Mallard’s sister and husband try to tell her the news of her husbands alleged death as simply as they possibly can (par. 2). Moreover, Chopin has incorporated a forbidden topic, which is Mrs. Mallard’s happiness stemming from her husband’s death. Using this topic, the work then takes a dramatic turn, as she begins to realize that she’s “free, free, free” from the “oppression” that is her husband, and this aids in establishing a sense of dramatic irony nearing the end of the tale (par. 11). To further elaborate about her husband, she was in a position in which I would assume the marriage

The two short stories I read were both extremely symbolic pieces of writing where the author mainly strayed from directly criticizing patriarchy. In the Story of the and Hour by Kate Chopin, the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard is introduced to having heart trouble. Her sister and husband’s friend are with her while she is delivered news of her husband’s death. Because of this event, Mrs. Mallard is initially overcome with a “storm of grief.” Throughout the story, she is psychologically portrayed as to being insane because of her inverse reactions to her husband’s death. This is similar to Dino Buzzati’s The Falling Girl where the protagonist Martha, relays her thoughts as she is falling from a skyscraper. These portrayals relate to gender issues

“But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely” (Chopin 157). She feels free from the obligations to her husband that was forced upon her during the Victorian era and she is looking forward to the years of independent freedom that are yet to come. “There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature” (157). Mrs. Mallard did not want to submit to the oppressor, who in this case, was her husband. She wanted to make her own decisions and didn’t want to take orders from her husband. She was forced to live that way because her husband controlled her. Once she found out that he was supposedly dead, she felt free from the male oppression that she had been a victim of since the day she and her husband exchanged vows. Mrs. Mallard would rather live for herself and not have to live for her husband, and his alleged death allowed her to live for herself without getting a divorce, so her society wouldn’t look down upon her.

Throughout the course of human history, societies worldwide tend to follow a specific pattern of male domination in politics, economics, and culture. From the earliest city-states of Mesopotamia to the massive empires of China and Rome, women were forced to take a limited role in society. This systematic oppression of women is indicative of a patriarchal society, in which “women have been subordinate to men in the family and in society generally” (Ways of the World 59). Though these civilizations share the characteristic of male supremacy, each had different practices governing interactions between the genders. Each society had a unique idea of exactly what rights women were afforded and how the patriarchy was enforced. The Mesopotamian, Chinese, and Greek civilizations were undeniably patriarchal, but how the dominance of men was expressed varied between each society.