Awakening/Story of an Hour Essay

Story of An Hour and The Awakening Compare and Contrast Essay

Kate Chopin's literary works, "Story of An Hour" and "The Awakening" are very similar in their strong feministic voice, the mood of discontentedness, and the prevailing theme of the search for freedom from a culture dominated by male supremacy and the belief that women are a possession rather than a gift to be cherished.

In both "Story of An Hour" and "The Awakening," a strong voice of feminism prevails throughout, paired with underlying tones of doubt. In "The Awakening," Chopin uses strong symbolism, such as the caged birds introduced in the very first sentence of the novel, to set the idea that married women are caged by societal conventions and deserve to be freed to experience all that life has to offer free from responsibilities and confining rules. Mrs. Pontellier expresses many times throughout "The Awakening" how she wishes to be free of her husband and children to pursue her artistic aspirations, her physical needs with other men, and her friendship with Mademoiselle Reisz, a woman who escaped society's expectations and as a result lives free to pursue her own wants and needs. Mrs. Pontellier is surrounded by men, including her husband, Alcee Arobin, and Robert Lebrun, but only wishes to pursue temporary relationships with Alcee and Robert based on satisfying her physical and emotional needs that her husband ignores and regards as unimportant. In "Story of An Hour," Mrs. Mallard is also married but is dissatisfied with her marriage and like Mrs. Pontellier likely wishes to pursue other men. In each of the stories, the women recognize that they do not need men to complete or help them, but they each struggle with doubt. Mrs. Mallard thinks about how she will miss her husband when his hands are folded across his chest, dead, and Mrs. Pontellier commits suicide because she doubts herself so strongly. The doubt is symbolic of the time period in which women were beginning to emerge as stronger but were still shielded by men at a moment's call and had not yet fully recognized themselves as sufficient. Kate Chopin's life growing up was dominated by a female presence. Her father died when she was young, and she was then raised by all female widowers, then went on to a Catholic school where she was further surrounded by unmarried women. Her young life probably contributed to the way she wrote since she was always taught that women wore more than able to make a successful living on their own.

The mood of discontentedness is prominent in both stories. Throughout all of "The Awakening," Mrs. Pontellier is dissatisfied with her life, whether she is married, "in love" with Robert, or pursuing relations with Alcee. She is ignored in her marriage, abandoned by Robert, and used for physical pleasure by Alcee. The only time that she seems content is in the final chapter of the novel where she takes the final act of defiance and removes her clothing, which is symbolism for removing her past, society's wishes, and the doubt that has slowly killed her inside. As she walks into the water, she thinks pleasant thoughts of her childhood and briefly of her husband and children, but does not stop what she's doing so that they can no longer have precedence over her. Mrs. Mallard gained peace in "Story of An Hour" when she came to the conclusion that she was finally "free! body and soul free!" Her peace was quickly removed, however, when her husband walked in the house and she recognized that her blossoming freedom had been revoked and she died. Each of the stories end on a sad note and each with ambiguous endings to leave room for interpretation of what happened after the deaths. The reader can infer that no change occurs afterwards, though, because the husbands and families didn't really care about the women before.

In each of the stories, the search for freedom is the dominant theme. Mrs. Pontellier took steps towards freedom when she moved into her own home and when she stopped seeing her husband and children, but as previously stated, she never obtained that freedom and realized that she never could, so she killed herself. Mrs. Mallard recognized her freedom, and the reader can infer this from the subtle change that occurred when the author quit referring to her as "Mrs. Mallard" and began calling her "Louise," symbolizing that she was no longer bound to anybody or any expectations based on a name. Louise never found freedom despite her invigorating experience near the window in her room because she too realized that she could never truly have freedom- even supposed death was not enough to free her because Mr. Mallard was not truly dead. Each of the women ultimately failed at finding freedom, but each searched relentlessly in desperate hopes of finding it.

"Story of An Hour" and "The Awakening" both contain many similarities and no differences- each of the main women are feminists, each are consistently discontent with their lives, each want to find freedom, and each fail and die, one from suicide and the other possibly from sorrow and shock. Kate Chopin's literary career ended with "The Awakening," but the influence of her story did not, and the rising of strong and independent women in the start of the 1900s can be contributed in part to Chopin whose stories inspired women everywhere.