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English Short Story Essay

In: English and Literature

Submitted By garciat115
Words 1208
Pages 5
A Married Woman’s Complex In 2012, the University of Chicago conducted a “well being” study and it was found that 97% of married people are “happily married”. If this study were conducted a century ago, 97% probably would have reported being unhappy in their marriage, the majority being women. These dutiful wives and repressed mothers were not allowed any personal or intellectual freedom. These oppressed, married women are the types of characters feminist author, Kate Chopin, revels in. During the production of “Kate Chopin: A Re-Awakening” at Emory University, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese said Chopin was “nonetheless a woman who took women extremely seriously, she never doubted women’s ability to be strong.” The characters in Chopin’s short stories’, “The Story of An Hour” and “The Storm”, are unfulfilled and desire more in their marriage. They have no validation in life and may have husbands that love and provide for them yet they are still unhappy. They are all invested in their marriages and families yet at some point realize that they ultimately yearn for a single and free life. Louisa Mallard ironically felt more liberated when she learned of her husband’s death and Calixta and Clarisse are involved with the same man yet want different things from him. In such few words, Kate Chopin is able to illustrate the oppressiveness women of the late 1800s felt in their marriages. Louisa felt more obligations in her marriage than love. Chopin describes her as, “young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength” (169). She had no children and once widowed, she realized that she felt a freedom she never had during her marriage. “But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air” (169). The language Chopin uses is not of grief but rather a rebirth and potential

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