Kate Chopin had many obstacles to overcome throughout her lifetime. She lived a very traumatizing and detrimental life. By spending her childhood in St. Louis, Missouri in the late 1850’s, Kate Chopin knew what it felt like to be discriminated against. St. Louis was a city widely recognized as a prejudice state during the late nineteenth century (Chopin 651). The city was also known for being the sight of the Dread Scott trial. Kate Chopin experienced “many acts of injustice at an early age and she was conformed into being a stereotype of the structure” (Chopin 654). Another impediment that Kate Chopin overcame was not having a male figure in the household. She lost her father at the age of six in a train accident and her brother George died after being imprisoned (Chopin 646). Instead of looking at her past as being harmful, she used the negativity and channeled the energy into writing award- winning novels and stories. By being a feminist writer, Chopin uses realism and writes stories that characterize her childhood and life experiences. Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour” explores the negative views of marriage injustices by being under a man’s control during the latter-part of the nineteenth century in America.
The historical context of Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour” really describes why this story is written. Chopin constructed this piece of literature during the late Romantic Period, which encompasses the years of 1850-1890. Throughout this time, the United States had recovered from an era in which many cultural and social questions engaged Americans' minds (Welter 381). African-American’s left their roles of enslavement and finally had the chance to seek new opportunities. During the late nineteenth century, the Civil War had just ended and the Women’s Suffrage Movement had come into existence. America had undergone a reform movement that impacted