从女权主义看The story of an hour

A Study on Feminism of The Story of an Hour

Abstract:

Kate Chopin is one of American’s most important women writers of the 19th century. Kate Chopin explores feminine selfhood in a patriarchal society through the heroine’s spiritual journey to freedom in “The Story of an Hour.” In this story, Chopin presents us with a picture of a complicated and complex development of Louise Mallard’s spiritual awakening triggered by the false news of her husband’s death in a train accident. Background:

In the 19th century, legal, religious and traditional practices strict restrictions on women, especially Southern women’s rights. They could not vote, cannot make their voices heard in the political sphere; most of the work refused to hire female staff, the majority of women can only perform household chores; proportion of educated women is far lower than that of men. Ethical, Southern women are more bound and repressed.

Feminism on The Story of an Hour:

“She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her. ” (para 3) From this part, we can see that women supposed to be weak and unable to handle emotional attacks. Women without husband was considered miserable by conventions. In the story, men supposed to be the controller of life, while women could not take of themselves without men. Yes, Mrs. Mallard had something common with the other women in that society. However, she had something that’s now and fresh.

After grieving for her husband, Mrs. Mallard felt a strong sense of freedom: “Free, Free, body and soul.” It’s a feeling that covered in her heart before her husband’s death. The room and the fence could easily tell us about what Mrs. Mallard’s true character was. She was someone who wanted freedom. She was a married woman who wanted a life without too much limitation. She cleared her head up, and started to thinking about the new life in a better way. She could not help herself from thinking of her own freedom instead of thinking about the bad side of the death. She was completely overthrown by the joy she imaged. She wanted to do something different

without her husband around. And the heroine must know her feeling was not qualified in that society. So she was waving the beautiful feature alone. No one could possibly get her in that time.

What an ironic theme that her husband came back and knew nothing! Brently Mallard came back without any damage. Louise died because of “heart disease——of joy that kills”. How dramatic! One just planed her bright future and God immediately take over it. Whether it was Louise’s weakness that failed her or it was losing of belief that killed her? I think she had both. From this dramatic death of Mrs. Mallard, it is reasonable to think that feminism was not so strong in that age. The common convention could kill women’s freedom very easy. Mrs. Mallard did not think about how to fight for her own freedom. Marriage seemed the dead end of women’s freedom.

Conclusion:

From this short story, we can understand that women barely had freedom in 19th century in US. Even though they had the thought about wanting free, they did not know how to get it. For women, they were accessories to men. Women seemed very vulnerable in people’s mind. Finally, they realized the idea of freedom, but it ended unsuspected. The ending is not funny at all, it’s a tragedy. Mrs. Mallard was just having a nice dream. It’s brutal. The short story speaks out the awareness of feminism.

 

第二篇:从女权主义看The Story of an Hour

Kate Chopin

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?About the authorFeminismThe plot of the storyThe theme of the storyThe contradictions between charactersThe death of Mrs. MallardConclusion

Kate Chopin (1850 –1904) was an American author of short stories and novels, mostly of a Louisiana Creole background.

In 1870, at the age of twenty, she married Oscar Chopin, twenty-five, and the son of a wealthly cotton-growing family in louisiana.

After their marriage they lived in New Orleans where she had five boys and two girls before she was twenty-eight. Oscar died of swamp fever there in 1882.

从女权主义看TheStoryofanHour

从女权主义看TheStoryofanHour

Kate Chopin went beyond Maupassant's technique and style and gave her writing a flavor of its own.She had an ability to perceive life and put it down on paper creatively. She put much concentration and emphasis on women's lives and their continual struggles to create an identity of their own within the boundaries of the patriarchy. Through her stories, Kate Chopin wrote her own autobiography and documented her

surroundings; she lived in a time when her surroundings included the abolitionist movements and the emergence of feminism. Her ideas and descriptions were not true word for word, yet there was an element of nonfiction lingering throughout each story.

从女权主义看TheStoryofanHour

?The theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.

?Examines ways in which literature reinforces or undermines the oppression of women.

–EconomicallySociallyPoliticallyPsychologically

?Exposition (Para1-2)

Mrs. Mallard heard the news of her husband's death.?Elaboration (Para3-7)

Mrs. Mallard's respones of Her husband's death.?Climax (Para8-20)

Mrs. Mallard realized her freedom.

?Denouement (Para21-23)

Mr. Mallard came back home, while Mrs. Mallard died of heart disease.

?1. Women became aware of their own identity in man–dominated marriage.

?2. Women came to feel a sense of freedom and gradually tried to pursue it.

?“She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister‘s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her. ”(para 3)

?“She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite

motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams. ”(para 7)

?“She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body. ”(para 11)

?“‘Free! Body and soul free! ’she kept whispering .”(para 16)

?……

?She seems like a traditional woman, but she has her own thouguts. In the deep heart of her, she wants freedom more than marriage.

in other people’s eyes according to the conventional and secular criteria. Her husband was gentle and considerate, so they were deemed to be a perfect match. However, deep inside her heart she felt much inhibited. No one knew, including her husband, of her spiritual demands. Yet she had to make others believe that she was happy and lucky. She had to act the traditional role as a virtuous wife, not for herself, but for others. The heroines in the work lived a two-faceted life. She lived in disguise to hide her real feelings and intentions.

She let herself follow the imagination like an unbridled horse. Here is the vivid description of her mind, “There she stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. ... The notes of a distant song which someone was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eave."

?The news of Mr. Mallard's death

Relatives: specially care to tell the news.

从女权主义看TheStoryofanHour

freedom

?Mr. Mallard's come back

Ralatives: happy

Mrs. Mallard: dream collaspe

?Mrs. Mallard's death

?The doctor's diagnose——the joy that kills

?Actually, its the appearance of her husband that kills her.?The freedom she dreams will never come true.

?By Louise’s spiritual journey for feminine liberation, Chopin clearly suggests that any woman seeking for ideal feminine selfhood and freedom is innocent, na?ve and idealistic in a hostile patriarchal society that certainly does not allow any feminine self-assertion for the time being.

?At first glance, the novel's language and narrative

contradictions, and the plot of the story is usually sudden reversal at the end, giving unexpected sense. However, this sudden turn is often the crowning touch.

?Her novel mostly reflects the call for freedom and the pursuit of self. In the United States in the late 19th

century and early 20th century, the “deviant”thinking far beyond the social.

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