Chopin The Feminist Writer of Unhappy Marriages

Irony and The Story of an Hour

There is no indication of whether Kate Chopin was unhappy or not in her own marriage before her husband died, but she certainly wrote about female characters who were unhappy in their marriages. The Awakening is such a story, and “The Story of an Hour” about Mrs. Mallard is another such story. Today, Kate Chopin is celebrated as a feminist writer. However, because she wrote to support her family, it is quite likely that she simply tapped into a pervading sentiment at the end of the 19th century in American society—the problem of the unhappy, unfulfilling marriage. In “Story of an Hour,” Chopin depicts such a marriage as oppressive, and through the character of Mrs. Mallard she conveys the yearning for freedom that women stuck in such marriages often have. To achieve an effect on the reader, Chopin relies on irony to strike the kind of cynical note that reflects the acidity present in the text.

The story is about Mrs. Mallard, who is sick at heart, because she feels oppressed in her marriage. When news suddenly comes that her husband has died in a train accident, she feels alive and free as though for the first time. She is filled with joy: “‘Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering’ (Chopin, 2023). In other words, the news of her husband’s death does not shock her into sadness; on the contrary, it snaps her out of her depression and jolts her back to life. She feels free and alive.

Chopin, was obviously tapping into something that other women felt with this story: she was delivering on a fantasy that women likely had about being freed from their marriages through death, since divorce at that time was not very common. For Chopin, who herself came from an Irish Catholic background and married into a French Catholic family, divorce would have been totally unthinkable. Perhaps this is why she entertained this theme of unhappiness in marriage so strongly.

However, Mrs. Mallard’s joy is cut short when her husband appears; presumed dead, he is actually alive. The shock of seeing her husband kills her, and the irony that Chopin conveys is that her death is misinterpreted: \"When the doctors came, they said she had died of heart disease—of joy that kills\" (Chopin, 2023). But the reader knows why she died: on the verge of freedom and happiness, her newfound life is snatched away by the reappearance of the man she feels has stifled her in the institution of marriage.

Chopin\'s use of irony in the story serves a dual purpose. On one hand, it critiques the societal expectations placed on women, especially within the confines of marriage. On the other, it underscores the tragic reality that many women of her era faced: the suppression of their desires and the curtailment of their freedoms. While some critics argue that the story\'s conclusion is abrupt, it is this very abruptness that drives home the story\'s central theme of the fleeting nature of freedom.