Feminine Self-Assertion In The Story Of An Hour
Feminine Self-Assertion in “The Story of an Hour”
Xuding Wang 1
English Department, Tamkang University
Abstract
This essay attempts to prove that Kate Chopin explores feminine selfhood in a patriarchal society through the heroine’s spiritual journey to freedom in “The Story of an
Hour.” In this story, Chopin presents us with a picture of a complicated and complex development of Louise Mallard’s spiritual awakening triggered by the false news of her husband’s death in a train accident. Louise is a pioneering feminist searching for selfhood and freedom, not “an immature egoist and a victim of her own extreme self-assertion” (Berkove
152) as some critics like Lawrence I. Berkove maintain. While questioning Berkove’s argument that “Louise is sick, emotionally as well as …show more content…
Further, the word “repression” directly points out that Louise has to repress her natural feelings and thoughts with “a certain strength.” Furthermore, the
“repression” is also from the moral demand of the societal institutions such as the marriage, the family and the friend. If these societal institutions do not cause the repression, what else can do it? Even when the deeply suppressed awakening is surging to the surface of her conscious mind, Louise is still automatically struggling to suppress it: “She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striking to beat it back with her will…” (536). Naturally the invisible force that urges her conscious will to voluntarily screen or censor her emerging awakening is from the social conventions and moral traditions of the patriarchal society that has formed the social codes for individual conduct. Angelyn Mitchell clearly points out: “Patriarchy’s social conditioning creates codes of social behavior to ensure the suppression of feminine desires” (60). Quite obviously, the
“codes of social behavior” have strong invisible confining power that tightly grips
Xuding Wang 1
English Department, Tamkang University
Abstract
This essay attempts to prove that Kate Chopin explores feminine selfhood in a patriarchal society through the heroine’s spiritual journey to freedom in “The Story of an
Hour.” In this story, Chopin presents us with a picture of a complicated and complex development of Louise Mallard’s spiritual awakening triggered by the false news of her husband’s death in a train accident. Louise is a pioneering feminist searching for selfhood and freedom, not “an immature egoist and a victim of her own extreme self-assertion” (Berkove
152) as some critics like Lawrence I. Berkove maintain. While questioning Berkove’s argument that “Louise is sick, emotionally as well as …show more content…
Further, the word “repression” directly points out that Louise has to repress her natural feelings and thoughts with “a certain strength.” Furthermore, the
“repression” is also from the moral demand of the societal institutions such as the marriage, the family and the friend. If these societal institutions do not cause the repression, what else can do it? Even when the deeply suppressed awakening is surging to the surface of her conscious mind, Louise is still automatically struggling to suppress it: “She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striking to beat it back with her will…” (536). Naturally the invisible force that urges her conscious will to voluntarily screen or censor her emerging awakening is from the social conventions and moral traditions of the patriarchal society that has formed the social codes for individual conduct. Angelyn Mitchell clearly points out: “Patriarchy’s social conditioning creates codes of social behavior to ensure the suppression of feminine desires” (60). Quite obviously, the
“codes of social behavior” have strong invisible confining power that tightly grips