Kate Chopin
Home and away – Picture book by John Marsden and Matt Ottley
The story of an hour – Kate chopin * This short story is set in the 19thcentury and shows the tension between female characters and the society that surrounds them. Margaret Baurer suggests Chopin is concerned with exploring the dynamic interrelation between men and women. And women and patriarchy, even women and women. She users gender to contemplate feminine identity and at the same time to critique patriarchal society that define and limits that identity, being primarily concerned with the way gender roles deny identity * The story is set in the 19thcentury at a time when a woman was judged by her husband neighbours and society and women’s identity was constrained by expectations of purity, virtue and domesticity. This domesticity relegated women to the home, denying them intellectual and professional capabilities * In the story Mrs Mallard becomes aware of her own desires and of a feminine self that has long been suppressed as the result of her husband’s death. As a result she attempts to create and identity that conflicts with gender constraints of a patriarchal society * It demonstrates through his process the control of female experiences as a result of masculine privilege that limit the individual and stops them achieving a self and accepted feminine identity that is unique. The shaping of expectations as a result of gender is seen when Mrs mallards condition is described as a congenital weakness that is biologically determined with Chopin using this to introduce the idea of biological determinism i.e. gender behaviour as shaped by biology rather than the contemporary belief that its socially constructed * Chopin is demonstrating the way society perceives women and wives as weak individuals who are childlike. The text ironically suggests that these definitions are the results of patriarchy and that such categorising means that the society fails to perceive the true nature of
The story of an hour – Kate chopin * This short story is set in the 19thcentury and shows the tension between female characters and the society that surrounds them. Margaret Baurer suggests Chopin is concerned with exploring the dynamic interrelation between men and women. And women and patriarchy, even women and women. She users gender to contemplate feminine identity and at the same time to critique patriarchal society that define and limits that identity, being primarily concerned with the way gender roles deny identity * The story is set in the 19thcentury at a time when a woman was judged by her husband neighbours and society and women’s identity was constrained by expectations of purity, virtue and domesticity. This domesticity relegated women to the home, denying them intellectual and professional capabilities * In the story Mrs Mallard becomes aware of her own desires and of a feminine self that has long been suppressed as the result of her husband’s death. As a result she attempts to create and identity that conflicts with gender constraints of a patriarchal society * It demonstrates through his process the control of female experiences as a result of masculine privilege that limit the individual and stops them achieving a self and accepted feminine identity that is unique. The shaping of expectations as a result of gender is seen when Mrs mallards condition is described as a congenital weakness that is biologically determined with Chopin using this to introduce the idea of biological determinism i.e. gender behaviour as shaped by biology rather than the contemporary belief that its socially constructed * Chopin is demonstrating the way society perceives women and wives as weak individuals who are childlike. The text ironically suggests that these definitions are the results of patriarchy and that such categorising means that the society fails to perceive the true nature of