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Kate Chopin: A Feminist Analysis

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What is feminism? Why is it so important? Do you experience feminist matters today? All of these questions are very prevalent to your daily lives in the 21st century and can be answered in numerous stories such as “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Story Of An Hour” by Kate Chopin, and The Awakening by Kate Chopin. These questions can also be answered in theoretical articles and books such as Literary and Cultural Theory by Donald Hall, “The Agony of Feminism: Why Feminist Theory Is Necessary After All” by Nina Baym, and “Western Feminism In A Global Perspective” by Violet K. Dixon. Now what all of these documents have in common is that they all acknowledge the very complex matter of feminism and the many subjects that …show more content…

Chopin acknowledges the fact that women should do a certain thing and if they don’t do that certain thing than they will be punished by being yelled at, as shown in the quote, “He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother’s place to look after children, whose on earth was it? He himself had his hands full with his brokerage business” (Chopin page 6). Chopin illustrates an example of Edna (the women character in the book) getting scorned at because she was not able to do a “natural” capacity. In “The Story of An Hour” also by Chopin, Chopin conveys the emotion going through this women (main character, the women, that was not named) when she was notified of her husband 's death, but these emotions had to be concealed because it would be deemed unnatural and the women knew she would get punished. The quote by Chopin showing is, “She did not stop to ask if it were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again…” (Chopin). Women were obviously afraid of being punished by people (men) who would see the women’s emotions and actions as unnatural. Gilman portrays the women (main

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