An Hour Gender Roles

“The Story of an hour” written by Kate Chopin construes the journey of Mrs. Mallard against the Cult of True Womanhood as she gradually becomes aware of her own desires and thus of a feminine self that has long been contained. While this journey begins with the news of her husband’s death, Bentley Mallard’s unexpected return at the very end of the story tragically cuts short the journey towards feminine selfhood. Yet the story is tragic from the starting to end, for the very attempt to create a character against the gender constraints of the society is riddled with a sense that such an endeavor can only end in defeat. “The Story of an Hour” demonstrates that the society that determines gender roles, which control women’s practices, and withholds
Mallard after finding her new identity exited her room to join Josephine and Richard. When Brently Mallard entered through the main door, he ‘stood amazed at Josephine’s piercing cry; at Richards’ quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife’. They expected Louise Mallard to be overwhelmed at the sight of her husband, which not only portrayed their lack of comprehensive abilities of Louise Mallard’s new sense of self but also made it evident of the gender barriers that existed. Also the doctor’s evaluation that she died of ‘joy that kills’ is an irony which Chopin used to criticize the patriarchal system. The heart disease that harrows Louise is both a physical and typical illness that speaks to her uncertainty toward her marriage and misery with her lack of freedom. The way that Louise has heart problem is the first thing Chopin wrote, and this is the thing that appears to make the declaration of Brently's passing so undermining. A woman with a weak heart, all things considered, would not handle such news. At the point when Louise thought of her freedom, her heart raced, pumping blood through her veins. Towards the end of the story when she died, the determination of ‘heart disease’ appears to be fitting on the grounds that the stun of seeing Brently was without a doubt enough to get her killed. Her new found identity is not only erased in her death but also by the shortcoming of the people who were close to her. They failed to fathom the genuine essence her joy. In "The Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin analyzes the lives of women in the nineteenth century and not just the routes in which society, through its ideas of gender, its generalization of women, marriage, at last, eradicates female yearnings. Women were usually expected to live their lives largely at home, taking care of cooking, cleaning, and taking care of children they turn into the invisible partners to their spouses, without any wishes and