Questions and answers about "The Story of an Hour"

Q: Is it true that this is Kate Chopin's most popular story? A: It may be true. The story certainly appears in a great many anthologies these days. From 1929 to about 1970, "Désirée's Baby" was the best known of Chopin's works, praised by critics and often reprinted. When the Complete Works of Kate Chopin was published in 1969, "The Storm"—unknown until that time—became famous almost over night, as did "The Story of an Hour." Today "Désirée's Baby," "The Story of an Hour," and "The Storm" are heavily discussed by scholars and regularly read in college classes, although a few other stories—"A Respectable Woman," "Lilacs," "A Pair of Silk Stockings," "Athéna?se," and "At the 'Cadian Ball," among them—are also frequently read.

Q: Why is the story so powerful? What do readers find in it? A: In 1975 Susan Cahill called the story "one of feminism's sacred texts," and many readers have since concluded that Kate Chopin's sensitivity to what it sometimes feels like to be a woman is on prominent display in this work—as it is in The Awakening. Chopin's often-celebrated yearning for freedom is also on display here—as is her sense of ambiguity and her complex way of seeing life. It's typical of her to note that it is both "men and women" who "believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature."

Q:You say that the story was first published under the title, "The Dream of an Hour." Who changed that title and why? A: We don't know. It's true that the story appeared in Vogue in 1894 as "The Dream of an Hour." As late as 1962 critic Edmund Wilson continued to refer to it under that title. But in 1969 it was called "The Story of an Hour" in the Complete Works of Kate Chopin. We have discovered no explanation for the change.

Q: So what does the present title mean?

A: The action of the story seems to play out in about an hour's time.

Q: I've read on a website that readers were scandalized by

the story when it was published. Why?

A: It's a mystery to us how the authors of that website know that readers in the 1890s were, in fact, scandalized by the story. Book reviewers were certainly upset by Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening in 1899. We have published reviews showing that. There is, however--so far as we can tell--no printed evidence that the "The Story of an Hour" set off a scandal among readers.

Nevertheless, it is true that, as Emily Toth says in her 1999 book Unveiling Kate Chopin, "Kate Chopin had to disguise reality. She had to have her heroine die. A story in which an unhappy wife is suddenly widowed, becomes rich, and lives happily ever after . . . would have been much too radical, far too threatening in the 1890s. There were limits to what editors would publish, and what audiences would accept." You can read more questions and answers about Kate Chopin and her work, and you can email us your questions.

For students and scholars

Accurate texts of "The Story of an Hour"

The Complete Works of Kate Chopin. Edited by Per Seyersted. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1969, 2006.

A Vocation and a Voice. Edited by Emily Toth. New York: Penguin, 1991.

Kate Chopin: Complete Novels and Stories. Edited by Sandra Gilbert. New York: Library of America, 2002.

Selected recent publications about "The Story of an Hour" Some of the articles listed here may be available on line through university or public libraries.

Jamil, S. Selina. "Emotions in 'The Story of an Hour'." Explicator 67.3 (2009): 215-220.

Wan, Xuemei. "Kate Chopin's View on Death and Freedom in The Story of an Hour." English Language Teaching 2.4 (2009):

167-170.

Emmert, Scott D. "Naturalism and the Short Story Form in Kate Chopin's 'The Story of an Hour'." Scribbling Women & the Short Story Form: Approaches by American & British Women Writers. 74-85. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2008.

Cunningham, Mark. "The Autonomous Female Self and the Death of Louise Mallard in Kate Chopin's 'Story of an Hour'." English Language Notes 42 (2004): 48-55.

Huntley, Paula. The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo New York: Penguin, 2004.

Miall, David S. "Episode Structures in Literary Narratives." Journal of

Literary Semantics 33 (2004): 111-29.

Deneau, Daniel P. "Chopin's 'The Story of an Hour'." Explicator 61

(2003): 210-13.

Cho, Ailee. "[Chopin and the Desire of Flight]." Nineteenth Century

Literature in English 7 (2003): 119-34.

Berkove, Lawrence I. "Fatal Self-Assertion in Kate Chopin's 'The Story

of an Hour'." American Literary Realism 32 (Winter 2000): 152-58.

Johnson, Rose M. "A Rational Pedagogy for Kate Chopin's Passional

Fiction: Using Burke's Scene-Act Ratio to Teach 'Story' and 'Storm'."

Conference of College Teachers of English Studies 60 (1996): 122-28.

Koloski, Bernard. "The Anthologized Chopin: Kate Chopin's Short Stories in Yesterday's and Today's Anthologies." Louisiana Literature 11 (1994): 18-30.

Selected books that discuss Chopin's short stories Brown, Kathleen L., and Peter Lev. Teaching Literary Theory

Using Film Adaptations Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009. For scholars: We seek

to make our listings of

Chopin scholarship

accurate and up to

date. If you find a

mistake, an omission,

or a misplacement,

would you tell us? If a

listed article is

available on the web,

would you send us the

link? Contact us.

Beer, Janet. The Cambridge Companion to Kate Chopin Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 2008.

Ostman, Heather. Kate Chopin in the Twenty-First Century: New Critical Essays Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars, 2008.

Arima, Hiroko. Beyond and Alone!: The Theme of Isolation in Selected Short Fiction of Kate Chopin, Katherine Anne Porter, and Eudora Welty Lanham, MD: UP of America, 2006. Beer, Janet. Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Studies in Short Fiction New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Stein, Allen F. Women and Autonomy in Kate Chopin's Short Fiction New York: Peter Lang, 2005.

Walker, Nancy A. Kate Chopin: A Literary Life Basingstoke, England: Palgrave, 2001.

Toth, Emily. Unveiling Kate Chopin Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1999.

Koloski, Bernard. Kate Chopin: A Study of the Short Fiction New York: Twayne, 1996.

Petry, Alice Hall (ed.), Critical Essays on Kate Chopin New York: G. K. Hall, 1996.

Elfenbein, Anna Shannon. Women on the Color Line: Evolving Stereotypes and the Writings of George Washington Cable, Grace King, Kate Chopin Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1994.

Boren, Lynda S. and Sara deSaussure Davis (eds.), Kate Chopin Reconsidered: Beyond the Bayou Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1992.

Perspectives on KateChopin: Proceedings from the Kate Chopin International Conference, April 6, 7, 8, 1989 Natchitoches, LA: Northwestern State UP, 1992.

Toth, Emily. "Introduction" A Vocation and a Voice New York: Penguin, 1991.

Papke, Mary E. Verging on the Abyss: The Social Fiction of Kate Chopin and Edith Wharton New York: Greenwood, 1990. Toth, Emily. Kate Chopin. New York: Morrow, 1990. Elfenbein , Anna Shannon. Women on the Color Line: Evolving Stereotypes and the Writings of George Washington Cable, Grace King, Kate Chopin Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1989.

Taylor, Helen. Gender, Race, and Region in the Writings of Grace King, Ruth McEnery Stuart, and Kate Chopin Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1989.

Bonner, Thomas Jr., The Kate Chopin Companion New York: Greenwood, 1988.

Bloom, Harold (ed.), Kate Chopin New York: Chelsea, 1987. Ewell, Barbara C. Kate Chopin New York: Ungar, 1986. Skaggs, Peggy. Kate Chopin Boston: Twayne, 1985. Cahill, Susan. Women and Fiction: Short Stories by and about Women. New York: New American Library, 1975.

Seyersted, Per. Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1969.

Rankin, Daniel, Kate Chopin and Her Creole Stories

Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1932.

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