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The Struggle Of Women In Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

850 Words4 Pages

Kate Chopin was an independent woman even while being married to her husband she walked alone through the city of New Orleans, and she argued with others about politics and social problems which were also not normal for a woman to do around the 1880’s. Her husband later died and though she mourned his death she embraced this independence even more. Chopin wrote about the life and the people of Louisiana (since she moved there after her husband 's death) and focused most of her writings on love, marriage, women, and independence. In the short story “The Story of an Hour” Chopin introduces the themes of freedom/Independence, the oppressiveness of marriage, and mortality through these three themes Chopin depicts the struggle of women during the 1880’s. Throughout the story the reader can see that independence for a woman is a forbidden pleasure that can only be imagined privately. Mrs. Millard finds out from her sister that her husband died she “wept at once…when …show more content…

Mrs. Millard admits her husband was kind and loving and that “she knew she would weep again when she saw the kind tender hands folded in death”.(65) She feels joy either way. Her reaction does not show anything bad since she knows she “had loved him”(66) . However, despite the love between them, Mrs. Millard views her husband 's death as a release from oppression. She does not specify any ways that her husband oppresses her, but it can be understood that during that time period, in 1880s Louisiana, women did not have many rights, if at all any. Women were confined to their husbands, and the only way to get out of this was death. This is why Mrs. Millard felt joy when her husband died even though she loved him. Since in the story it does not name any specific ways Mrs. Millard 's husband oppressed her, it just hints that marriage, in general, restrains both man and woman. She even suggests that she oppressed

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