Kate Chopin: The Independence and Downfalls of Women - Research Paper Example

Kate Chopin: The Independence and Downfalls of Women Biography Katherine Chopin, more commonly known as Kate, was born on February 8, 1851, in St. Louis, Missouri. After the death of her father, Kate established a very close relationship with her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, three people that would influence Kate’s very feministic view in her writing. She attended Sacred Heart Academy and graduated in 1868, but did not leave behind a legacy or anything important to her name. After the death of her mother, Kate’s doctor and family friend decided that writing would be the best medicine for Kate as well as a means of income for her and her family. She published many of her short stories, though some, such as the controversial The Awakening, was considered ahead of her time and was thus looked down upon. After being denied by the literary world, Kate began to be nonexistent as a writer. On August 20, 1904, Kate Chopin suffered a brain hemorrhage. She died on August 22, 1904. Analysis of Texts Kate Chopin was most known for her stories regarding the rights, freedom and independence of women in the mid-1800s. Her stories often dealt with women that appeared to be happy with their lives but really longed for freedom from what was expected of them by society. These women put on a good front and put up with the duties that came with being mothers and wives, but they secretly awaited the one chance they would need to break free from it all and live the lives that they wanted. Summaries A Pair of Silk Stockings, written in the early 1890s, is a short story about Mrs. Sommers, a woman who suddenly finds herself in the possession of fifteen dollars, a great amount during those times. Instead of rushing off to spend the money, she spends much time determining how it should best be used. Her first thoughts are of what she could suddenly afford for her children in the way of clothing. Having been used to patched and darned or secondhand clothing, Mrs. Sommers was thrilled at the prospect of being able to give her children new garments. However, all thoughts of the needs of her children diminished entirely when Mrs. Sommers laid hands on a pair of silk stockings that she wanted for herself, which is the onset of the conflict of A Pair of Silk Stockings. The shopping spree that followed was entirely centered on her as she purchased the stockings, new shoes, new gloves, a couple of magazines, a very expensive lunch and admission to the theater. When Mrs. Sommers makes out to go back home, after an enjoyable day that was entirely focused on her, the man in charge of the cable car wished nothing more than to keep her with him forever. The story ends there, leaving much to the imagination about the fate of Mrs. Sommers, though it can be assumed that she simply made her way back home and tended to her family as she normally would, except that she would be feeling happier. The Story of an Hour, written in 1894, tells about the steady downfall of the already sick Mrs. Mallard upon finding out that her husband has died in a train accident. As she sits before her bedroom window, mourning the life that once was, Mrs. Mallard begins to feel something coming at her, something that she recognizes as the chance to live out the rest of her life completely dedicated to herself. She was beginning to look forward to a long, happy life in which she was the sole focus. She would not have her husband controlling her, and she would no longer be living for someone else. It would finally be all about her. The conflict of the story is that Mrs. Mallard realized that she had wasted her time belonging to someone else. Unfortunately, Mrs. Mallard’s husband makes his grand entrance, having not been near the scene of the accident nor being aware that there had been an accident. He had not died at all. Mrs. Mallard dies from her heart disease, having been shocked at the sudden appearance of her supposedly dead husband and at the loss of her self-centered dreams. The story ends with the death of Mrs. Mallard, again with Chopin not providing the reader with further happenings. Plot Analysis Though the two stories involve different incidences and events, they are very similar in how they play out. In Silk Stockings, Mrs. Sommers finds herself with a little extra money, with which she wants to buy new clothes for her children. Upon finding a pair of silk stockings that she falls in love with, Mrs. Sommers indulges entirely on herself. “The neighbors sometimes talked of certain ‘better days’ that little Mrs. Sommers had known before she had ever thought of being Mrs. Sommers. She herself indulged no such morbid retrospection. She had no time - no second of time to devote to the past. The needs of the present absorbed her every faculty. A vision of the future like some dim, gaunt monster sometimes appalled her, but luckily tomorrow never comes (Chopin, pg. 13).” Even though Mrs. Sommers claimed not to have any such perception, the way that she focused only on her happiness, something that she had not done prior to starting a family, shows that she believes otherwise, just as her neighbors do. Every action that Mrs. Sommers did went against the belief that she was happy being a mother and a wife. In Story of an Hour, Mrs. Mallard mourns over her dead husband as any wife would. After a few hours of wallowing in despair, she begins to realize what this could mean for her life. Instead of seeing herself as losing a husband, she discovers that she has gained back a life. “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 (Chopin, pg. 9).” However, the irony is that Mrs. Mallard finally succumbs to death upon finding out that her husband is still alive. With or without her husband, Mrs. Mallard forfeit her chance at having a longer life, something that she points out in the story. “She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long (Chopin, pg. 11).” Now that her husband was back in the picture, she had no wish for life to be long. She died immediately upon seeing her husband, something that her sister and Richards would have seen as having been done out of joy that her husband was still alive. Both women go against their roles as mothers and wives. For the first time since they accepted responsibility of being family-orientated women, they put themselves first (Stange, pg. 68). They thought only of themselves and their happiness, and they felt no guilt in doing so. The chain of events that led each of these women to the resulting emotions or feelings is shown throughout the stories. Characters The main character in the first short story is Mrs. Sommers; the main character in the second story is Mrs. Mallard. Though they both experience entirely different situations and events in their lives, they are quite similar to one another. The greatest similarity is that, while neither of them would openly admit it to anybody, they both long for the freedom that they had before they became married and started creating families, which is common amongst the Chopin’s female characters (Toth, pg. 27). Mrs. Sommers is a mother of quite a few children, and while she is considered a Mrs., there is no indication that a husband is present. Likewise, Mrs. Mallard is married, but there is nothing that suggests that she has children. Both women work hard for their families without much complaint, putting children and spouse ahead of their own wants and needs. Judging on the events that take place within the stories, it becomes quite clear that what both of these women long for is freedom from the family life. Themes The predominant theme in both of the short stories is the independence of women, a theme that is touched upon in the majority of Chopin’s works. In the 1800s, most women gave up their lives as soon as they got married (Walker, pg. 21), and it only increased with each child that they had. In some cases, this drove women literally crazy, whether the stories are fictional or not. Kate Chopin got many of her creative ideas based on situations that she witnessed or experienced. Kate herself had to give up a lot when she became a mother and wife. It is a life that many women are unable to get back. What Kate Chopin wanted her audience to understand is that women, regardless of how large their family or how dependent their family is, should still be entitled to spoiling and thinking of themselves every once in a while (Kellman & Magill, pg. 77). In this modern age, women are finding it easier to do so; in the 1800s, it was almost impossible. Yet another theme is the false acceptance of change. Both Mrs. Sommers and Mrs. Mallard had pretended for years to be happy with where they were in life with their children and spouses. However, the first second they were able to think of their own happiness and freedom, they took it and ran. They did so with such exuberance that it makes one wonder exactly how unhappy they were with being mothers and wives. Critics’ Opinions As previously mentioned, Kate Chopin focuses a lot on the freedom of women in her short stories. According to Natalia Dagenhart, The Story of an Hour is no different. Dagenhart also points out that “for one moment she [Mrs. Mallard] gets afraid to allow herself to be happy about her freedom [...]. This shows us that Mrs. Mallard is a ‘product’ of her time and has to be dependent on society rules (Dagenhart, pg. 1). Dagenhart understands Mrs. Mallard’s hesitation to be happy due to how society expected her to react. Likewise, Jennifer Willhite reveals that the feelings that Mrs. Mallard is feeling is due to “having been repressed for so long (Willhite, pg. 1). She has become so used to belonging to someone that she is beside herself at the thought of being her own person. Not wanting to be married was considered a taboo in the 1800s, yet Mrs. Mallard had already been someone’s wife. If she were a widow, the expectations would be less demanding. Brian Hunter looks into the decisions undertaken by Mrs. Sommers in A Pair of Silk Stockings, looking at her behavior as a “temporary escape from the dreary responsibilities of a rather common penny pinching existence to enjoy some of the finer things in life for a fleeting moment of lightness, free from the usual shackles of conscientiousness expected of a wife and mother (Hunter, pg. 1). Allen Stein focuses on both the burden of females to be married and the lure of consumerism, finding connections between the two; consumerism reminds females of what life was like before they were married (Stein, pg. 1). Mrs. Sommers remembered her years before marriage and children when she picked up silk stockings; she then spent the rest of her afternoon thinking of only herself. These critical responses further reveal how women were treated during the 1800s and how desperate they were for something other than what they were given. Women were still considered property of their husbands and any free thought was looked down upon by society. It was out of gender role if a woman wanted something other than a husband and children. These critics point out how edgy these women felt at being free, though Mrs. Sommers, even at the end of the story, still felt no remorse for spending the extra money on herself instead of her children. Conclusion Between Kate Chopin and the previously mentioned critics, it is made clear the kinds of conditions that women were forced to live in the mid-1800s. They were not treated badly; indeed, they were revered by their husbands, their children, and society as a whole. However, they were still unable to do as they wished because they had to consider their family before they were allowed to consider themselves. All they simply wanted was the freedom to do things for themselves, and to think of themselves first for a change. This, though, was looked down upon, and they really had no choice but to do what was expected of them. Works Cited Chopin, Kate. A Pair of Silk Stockings and Other Stories. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 1996. Print. Chopin, Kate. The Story of an Hour. Logan, Iowa: Perfection Learning, 2001. Print. Dagenhart, Natalia. "Literary Analysis: The Story of an Hour." Helium. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2010. . Hunter, Brian. "The Reason: "A Pair of Silk Stockings" by Kate Chopin." The Reason. N.p., 28 Sept. 2009. Web. 22 Nov. 2010. . Kellman, Steven G., and Frank N. Magill. Magills Survey of American Literature. Rev. ed. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 2007. Print. Stange, Margit. Personal Property: Wives, White Slaves, and the Market in Women. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Print. Stein, Allen. "Kate Chopins "A Pair of Silk Stockings": The Marital Burden and the Lure of Consumerism." Find Articles. N.p., 19 July 2004. Web. 22 Nov. 2010. . Toth, Emily. Unveiling Kate Chopin . Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999. Print. Walker, Nancy A.. Kate Chopin: A Literary Life. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: PALGRAVE, 2001. Print. Willhite, Jennifer. "Kate Chopins "The Story of an Hour": A Brief Analysis." Suite101. N.p., 15 Nov. 2005. Web. 22 Nov. 2010. . Read More