Kate Chopin — from The Awakening and "The Story of an Hour"

Government is a central issue in Chopin's work. Obviously women were being oppressed and out of this oppression rose the call for government to take some sort of action to act out against this oppression. Nature was not, however, a large part of these works. Adversely, these works showed that women during this time could only express their true opinions in private. The American Dream is quite prevalent throughout Chopin's work. These works show The American Dream of the silent minority during this time. There is no defined hero, but more or less a call for a her. This hero would most likely be anyone with the power to create equality for women. In "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin sounds like it sound be a very sad story- a woman learns that her husband was in an accident, and the reader immediately expects a lot of predictable sadness and angst. Instead, there is immediately a twist in the story, and the woman is actually relieved that her husband died. She is not really sad at all, but is thankful that he will no longer be able to control her life however he pleases and manipulate her every move. This immediately strikes me as Realism because a man controlling his wife in this way seems to be pretty accurate to the time period. Before the women's rights movement actually made any sort of impact on the country, men really were in charge of their wives and families and could technically exercise complete control over women. The woman in the story is rejoicing about finally being free of her husband...until there is yet another twist. Her husband comes back home, the woman is gripped with immense sadness, and she then dies. In the short story, "The Story of an Hour," Josephine, the character's friend, plays the part of the consoler, but the character does not wish to speak to anyone because it is human nature to shun others away when one is not "held together". Much like an increasing number of these stories, neither of Kate Chopin's works here have anything to do with religion or government. Her details contribute a lot to the story, and also bring up some exploring notions of human nature. The lines "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 and continues to sob in its dreams" show both her talent for using detail, and the realistic display of grief and sadness that overcome people and human nature in the situations of losing loved ones. Like other writers of Realism, Chopin also uses nature in her story to convey her point and give the story more detail. Her description "She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares..." displays this and the relation between humans and nature, which is understandable (Campbell).

Chopin, Kate. ""The Awakening" & "The Story of an Hour"" American Literature. Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Douglas Fisher, Beverly A. Chin, and Jacqueline J. Royster. Columbus: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2009. 491+. Print