Marriage, Patriarchy, and Freedom in Chopin's "The Story of an Hour"

Introduction: Marriage and Patriarchy in Turn-of-the-Century America

The institution of marriage has historically carried powerful implications of patriarchy. Especially in turn-of-the-century America, marriage was seen to largely serve the interests of male desire and the impulse for procreation. Within this scope, very little room was left to discuss female desire. Indeed, the pressure for a woman to ultimately be taken as a wife by a reputable man was a strong force underlying a great many marriages. This is the same force that stands at the center of Kate Chopin's 1894 short story "The Story of an Hour." In Chopin's highly allegorical piece, the female protagonist offers an inadvertent and unabashed critique of marital patriarchy simply by expressing involuntary joy at the news of her husband's death.

A Marriage of Social Convenience and Its Hidden Costs

Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" suggests that the affection which can emerge in a marriage of social convenience may not be enough to erase the feeling of being trapped. According to Toth (1999), Chopin's story is about "the submission of a young woman to someone else's will. It can also be read as a criticism of marriage itself, as an institution that traps women" (p. 10).

This is a fascinating reading, particularly because the story's protagonist does not appear to be locked into an unhappy marriage. Indeed, Chopin makes clear that Louise's husband had always been kind, had always treated her with love, and had, as far as the subtext suggests, been a faithful provider. Therefore, it says much about the institution of marriage that Louise records such a shocking response to the news of her husband's death. The notion of patriarchy as a negative force is easy to observe in the context of an abusive or violent relationship; however, its impact may be a great deal more subtle in the context of a happy marriage.

Here, the factors affecting Louise's emotional state have less to do with her husband himself than with the overarching socio-cultural pressures that placed the young woman in a marriage to begin with. The exultant joy that wells up within her — at the thought not of his death but of his absence — suggests that she may have been married against her own internal wishes. If this is the way we are to interpret the story, it provides meaningful insight into the sociological pressure that required women to marry. Moreover, upon marrying, most women during the turn-of-the-century moment captured in the story would tend to become almost appendages to the will of their husbands.

The Institution of Marriage as the True Subject of Critique

The Chopin story does not necessarily imply that Louise has been subjugated to the desires and demands of an imposing or overbearing male figure. There is no particular dimension of this marriage that the reader has been given cause to view as negative or objectionable. Instead, it is the institution of marriage in and of itself that is subject to criticism. Given the moment of perceived freedom to consider this institution, the character seems almost to suggest that there is something inherently unnatural about the state of a human relationship in marriage.

As Louise begins to recognize that she has been liberated from a state of imposition, Chopin describes the moment as follows: "there would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination" (Chopin, 1894, p. 1).

In this passage, we can see that it is not the nature of her marriage but the nature of marriage itself that she has objected to. Furthermore, we can presume that she did not recognize this objection in herself until the moment she was informed of her husband's passing. That the report ultimately proved incorrect is rather irrelevant in the moment of realization, given the rapid sequence that takes Louise from grief to internal celebration. What is far more relevant is the emergent understanding that most women in this era complied with the pressure to become married and to live in service of another individual's desires and expectations — even when this did not strike them as the most desirable or fitting course of life. This theme of women's rights and autonomy in the United States resonates well beyond the fictional frame of the story.

Conclusion: The Woman Left to Her Own Resources

Ultimately, what stands out about the author's personal orientation, and that of the Louise character, is the view that a woman left to her own resources is not a lost soul. Where society generally perceived that a woman had to find a husband and define her life around his family, Chopin's story shows that a woman left alone might yet have the opportunity to accomplish great things with her life.

Sadly, the resolution of "The Story of an Hour" sees Louise die suddenly — not so much from the joy of her husband's safe return, but from the devastating shock that she would never truly have this opportunity.

Works Cited

Chopin, K. (1894). The Story of an Hour. VCU.edu.

Toth, E. (1999). Unveiling Kate Chopin. University Press of Mississippi.