The issues that women have to manage in marital relationships have been viewed as taboo for a significant time period, which has led to increased gender inequality and the failure to prevent family violence and related issues. Kate Chopin was one of the first writers to expose the struggles of women in the specified environment of inequality in her “The Story of an Hour.” By using the feminist perspective, namely, the idea that women are oppressed because of their sex by the patriarchal institution and forced into relationships based on inequality, Chopin described the struggles of women in a powerful and insightful way.
Chopin uses the feminist perspective explicitly in her novel by outlining the miserable life to which women were confined in marriage. What makes the story especially powerful is the lack of awareness in the protagonist about her own unhappiness before her husband ostensibly dies and she realizes that she is no longer dependent on her husband’s choices. Moreover, the author emphasizes the presence of shared experiences among women everywhere, which adds to the effect of the story: “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same” (Chopin). Thus, a feminist narrative is constructed, leading to a profound analysis of the nature of inequality in families.
Moreover, apart from creating a carefully crafted and nuanced dissection of the identified problem of the lack of agency in married women, Chopin also points to the problem explicitly. At some point in her narrative, Chopin notes the following: “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). The specified line absorbs the essence of the feminist perspective concerning the problem of inequality and power imbalance in families due to the presence of patriarchal standards and perspectives. Therefore, Chopin tackles the issue directly and delineates the problem of gender inequality as the foundational issue that married women have to face.
Therefore, the novel helps to introduce the unassuming audience to the challenges that women had to face in marriage at the time, outlining what toll the silence took on the victims of the patriarchal institution of marriage. The final reveal of the story, namely, the protagonist’s death, is framed in a manner that could be regarded as humorous given the obvious conflict between the facts and the doctors’ conclusion: “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease – of the joy that kills” (Chopin). However, the specified quote reveals a much more sinister problem of marital relationships, namely, the fact that a woman could not feel entirely free as long as her husband continued to make every vital decision for her in a relationship that could be characterized by highly unbalanced power differentials.
Incorporating the feminist perspective of women being forced into unequal relationships due to the presence of the patriarchal philosophy and the institution based around it, Chopin exposed the problems of inequality and the resulting suffering of women in marriage to the full extent. The novel details the pain of realization that, when rooted in the concept of inequality and the focus on the needs of only one of the partners, marriage becomes a prison for women. Using masterfully created characters, none of which is portrayed as inherently evil, and the husband even depicted as quiet sympathetic, Chopin eposes the wrongfulness of the patriarchal institution and the belief that a certain characteristic, namely, sex, makes one individual superior to another. Thus, Chopin managed to create not only a deeply emotional narrative but also an exposé on the seemingly peaceful façade of marital life.
Work Cited
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.”VCU.edu, 1894. Web.