Assignment 8

Kate Chopin (1851-1904)

Until recently, if Kate Chopin was remembered at all, she was cited as one of those local color writers who flourished during the second half of the nineteenth century and made, through their colloquial style and regionalsketches, a valuable contribution to the development of literary realism. But Kate Chopin was a startlingly accomplished realist born a generation too early. Consequently, her novels and stories were almost universally condemned for their relatively frank expression of female sensuality. “The Storm” now strikes one as good natured and sensible about the possibilities of unsanctioned sexuality–sexuality that not only doesn’t injure anyone but actually heightens the commitment and affection between the wives and husbands of the tale.

“The Story of an Hour” (Story is below)

Chopin’s story concludes with what has come to be called an “O. Henry ending” (a term based on the surprise endings, often highly contrived, of the popular American short story writer of the late nineteenth century William Sydney Porter, observed in such stories as the famous “The Gift of the Magi”). Chopin clearly sets us up for this kind of ending. Even though we know from the beginning of the story that Mrs. Mallard suffers from heart trouble, we are still surprised when her husband unexpectedly returns and the equally unexpected fate of his wife. Chopin has taken great care to put us off the scent. Early on, the narrator assures us that a family friend, Richards, has inquired closely into the matter of Brently Mallard’s death and convinced himself by way of “a second telegram” that Mallard truly has perished in the railway disaster. He goes to this trouble because he wants to make absolutely sure of the truth before bearing the news to the ailing Mrs. Mallard.

Such careful craft is evident throughout the work: in the upstairs/downstairs, private/public dichotomies Chopin sets up and in the way she sustains suspense as she gradually allows Mrs. Mallard–and the reader–to discover her own possibly “monstrous joy” at her husband’s apparent demise. One way to examine Chopin’s masterly use of suspense is to read the story slowly (perhaps even aloud), pausing at several junctures to imagine what revelations might be up ahead. For example, the glorious spring day so beautifully described in paragraphs 5 and 6 might be expected in a more conventional story to suggest the tragic contrast between the liveliness and beauty of the season and the desolation and loss that are Mrs. Mallard’s lot. However, as we soon discover, the birds twittering and the mottled vista of clouds and sky suggest, less predictably, that a new, freer life is opening up for Mrs. Mallard. Similarly, when we read that the lines of her face “bespoke repression and even a certain strength,” we may at first believe that she is repressing her grief, trying to be strong and maintain her composure despite the loss of her husband. Later we realize that she is probably repressing recognition of her joy–and perhaps that the lines of repression also suggest something about her history within the marriage.

Some of you may jump to the conclusion that Chopin’s is a story about woman subdued and perhaps abused by her husband–a story implicitly critical of the “Western patriarchal hegemony” to use the jargon of feminist criticism, and many essays have been written declaring the story as an early and superb crafted story that carefully conveys the problem inherent in women's unequal role in marital relationships. But a closer look at the text suggests that assessing blame is not the story’s aim; and in this regard, of course, paragraphs 5 and 6 are key. (For some of us, critiquing patriarchy and assessing blame are not quite or necessarily the same thing). It's typical of Chopin to note that it is both "men and women" who "believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature." Chopin thus suggests that all marriages, even the kindest ones, are inherently oppressive. Beyond the question of female independence, Louise seems to suggest that although Brently Mallard has always treated their relationship with the best of intentions, any human connection with such an effect of permanence and intensity, despite its advantages, must also be a limiting factor in some respects. Louise, who readily admits that her husband was kind and loving, nonetheless feels joy when she believes that he has died. Her reaction doesn’t suggest any malice, and Louise knows that she’ll cry at Brently’s funeral. However, despite the love between husband and wife, Louise views Brently’s death as a release from oppression. She never names a specific way in which Brently oppressed her, hinting instead that marriage in general stifles both women and men. She even seems to suggest that she oppressed Brently just as much as he oppressed her. Louise’s epiphany in which these thoughts parade through her mind reveals the inherent oppressiveness of all marriages, which by their nature rob people of their independence. Chopin thus suggests that, by its very nature, marriage encourages people to impose their wills on one another.

"The Story of An Hour"

Kate Chopin (1894)

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.

She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under hte breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were or 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 when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.

There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. 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. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!

"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."

"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.

Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.

She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.

Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.

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