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Plight of Women in Chopin's Works
Kate Chopin was master at creating female characters that lived out of their own time. Chopin was not what we may truly call a feminist by modern standards but she did attempt to give the women in her fiction the freedom they did not have in her time. Two stories that emphasize the female character and her lack are "The Story of an Hour" and "The Awakening." Louise and Edna are victims of society and, in the end, they never seek the freedom they deserve. These women are portraits of a time gone by that we would do well to remember lest we repeat similar mistakes.
Chopin knew what women went through and she used fiction to bring attention to it. She was writing to an audience that was not quite ready to read what she wanted to say but her message was important because she was speaking for a group of women that had no voice. Per Seyersted states that Chopin felt women "largely had the same drives as man and therefore also should have his 'rights'"(Seyersted). Women in the nineteenth century were not expected to be much than mothers and wives....
We see this demonstrated in "The Awakening" with Edna suffering from depression. Her freedom comes second to her family and she realizes that with a family, she cannot achieve the kind of life she wants. Edna is not strong enough to overthrow the constraints of society, so they are bound to crush her. when she discovers this, she is sees no way out but suicide. Interestingly, as she wades into the water, she does not feel compelled by love to go back to her family. She means "to think of them; that determination had driven into her soul like a death wound -- but not tonight. To-morrow would be the time to think of everything" (Chopin Awakening 148). In short, she…
Works Cited
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening and Other Stories. New York: Bantam Books. 1988.
-. "The Story of an Hour." The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Lauter, Paul, ed.
Lexington D.C. Heath and Company. 1990. pp. 635-7.
Seyersted, Per. "An excerpt from Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography." Louisiana State
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