A Story In An Hour Feminist Analysis Essay

The story “A Story in an Hour” was written by Kate Chopin, a recently recognized feminist writer. In this short story we find four characters, the protagonist Louise Mallard a women with heart problems that cannot get overly excited or extremely sad situations. Brently Mallard Louise’s husband, a kind and loving man. Josephine Louise’s sister cares very deeply about her sister and helps Louise with her heart problems. Finally Richards, he is Brently’s friend he is present during one of Louise’s, supposedly, difficult moments. This supposedly difficult moment for Louise in the story is the news of Brently Mallard, her husband, death in a train accident. At first she sobbed as any wife would after hearing the death of their loved one. She picks

There was this stereotype for women in the past were they were characterized as weak, domestic, social., dependent, pure, timid, not sensual an emotional, susceptible to hysteria. This stereotype meant that the role of women in society was mostly to marry young to become a wife and be financially supported by her husband. All these women were bound to the property law which stipulated that a married women did not have a separate legal existence from her husband. A married woman was to stay home and focus on caring for their husband, children and the house, this was considered as the ideal American society. Motherhood was the highest calling a women could aspire in that period. A married woman was a dependent, like an underage child or a slave, and could not own property in her own name, she could not sue or sign contracts on her own. As the years passed, in 1980, this ideal of women evolved a bit, married women stayed the same but single women started getting jobs, but people viewed single women with pity and scorn. Women with minimal skills took jobs in factories. Women with some level of education found jobs as nurses or teachers and some office jobs were available to women who showed proper manners and