Kate Chopin's Feminism in her Writing

embedded into the writing. A shared theme between the short fiction stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin, is freedom and confinement. The protagonist in these stories are both women who have trouble with a controlling husband. They do not have identical situations, but the overall conflict revolves around the way their spouses treat them as women. The authors of these stories have put underlying tones of feminism, and equality…

In the short story “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs. Mallard received the news of her husband’s death, instead of being sad, she was happy to be free from oppression but it did not last long. These women’s stories are examples of them suffering oppression by doing their women…

relationship to her husband in life and death. While the literary work “The Story of an Hour” is advantageous in exploring the patriarchy, it holds a much deeper historical background. Before the first wave of feminism women were considered to be largely incapable and for that reason, remained oppressed under the patriarchy. According to an essay entitled Women’s Role in Society in the 1800’s, “During the 1800’s a husband had legal authority over their wife. In a sense, he owned her, and for…

“Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin is a short story that focused on the tragic consequences of miscegenation during the nineteenth- century. This short story took place during the period known as the antebellum period on a Louisiana plantation. During the antebellum period, racism is strongly connected with sexism during this period and the cruelty of racism resulted in the intolerance of gender and race. The setting played a significant role to support the racial and gender bias between the main…

given and wanted their own agency. Therefore, they started writing in sanctioned publications to try and make a difference in a female’s role. “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “The Story of an Hour” written by Kate Chopin were created during that period. While the female protagonists in Chopin’s and Gilman’s short stories seemingly suffer unfortunate fates-- a characteristic of naturalism--…

In her short story “The Storm”, Kate Chopin shows herself to be far ahead of her time in terms of her exploration of women’s place in American society at the turn of the twentieth century by presenting female characters with their own sexual agency. Both women of “The Storm” are married yet find happiness through momentarily escaping their marriages: Calixta seeks fulfillment through an affair with a former beau, while Clarisse finds relief in abstinence. In this way, Chopin’s text is a feminist…

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin examines the constraints of marriage from a nineteenth century point of view. Chopin cleverly disguises her feminist perspective in this story by concealing her true motives for the conservative audience that would have read this during her time. Chopin did not identify as a feminist, however, the content of her writing is packed with liberating female characters and ideas that were radical for the nineteenth century. As a result “The Story of an Hour” was…

Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” is more than a grieving widow experiencing euphoria and finding her sense of self; it’s a statement of how a woman’s value and independence was worth during the 19th century. A wife was few more than a trophy for their husbands to showcase towards his fellow compatriots with children and homemaking skills being her only noteworthy talents. The life and death of Louise Mallard shed light on marriage being equivalent to surrendering one’s identity as an…

copious amounts of emotion. “She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength (Chopin 27),” “The pigeon-house pleased her. It at once assumed the intimate character of a home (Chopin 94).” With these two quotes, the reader can see into the subjectiveness of Edna’s actions and emotions, but the narrator stays objective. The reader knows that Edna feels bold and reckless, but the reader also knows that she is pushing her strength and will not be able to swim much farther. The reader sees…

Kate Chopin’s writing style truly captured the essence of the late 1800s, especially the story “Désirée’s Baby,” which follows the motherhood of a woman named Désirée in Southern Louisiana. Throughout the story, the author shows strong emotion with how she wrote and portrayed the scenes. Chopin showcases themes such as feminism and gender bias in a way, typically uncommon for the era in which she wrote, that intrigues her readers with the use of irony, imagery and foreshadowing to prove and…