The Awakening and The story of an Hour

Kate Chopin was a female writer during the period of 1880-191o. Chopin had a tough life, born into a time where women were expected to be exactly like one another she had very little choice in how her life ended up. Chopin married someone and had several children. One day Chopin was told that her husband had died, and she was going to have to raise the children on her own (Chopin). A doctor suggested to Chopin, after he mother died just a year later, that she take up writing to help her with the grief she had (Chopin) In The Awakening the main character is over come by an instense bout of crying she can not control. The short excerpt is very powerful with the imagery used to describe the woman feelings. The excerpt says "Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life. They seemed never before to have weighed much agaisnt the abundance of her husband's kindness and a uniform devotion which dad come to be tacit and self-serving" (Chopin) This quote means that crying episodes like the one in the story happened a decent amount when she was married. She did not know why they would happen but they never really got to her because her husband as so kind and was he rock to help keep her happy. I think this story sort of symbolizes that she knew something was wrong with her life while she was married but because her husband was such a good man she was able to overlook it, but now that she is alone she can not help but to keep crying. In The story of an Hour a woman is told that her husband has been killed in a tragic train accident. Upon hering this news the woman is voercome and starts sobbing before she runs to her room. While in her room she realizes the reason she is crying "When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escape her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: Free! Free! Free!" (Chopin). This story is about a woman who upon learning her husband has died realizes that now she is free to live her life as she wishes and not as her husband wishes. This story was a controversial at the time she wrote it because women were not important i society at the time. I thought both fo the stories the chopin wrote were very interesting, even though the awakening was a massive failure during her liufe in reality the story ended up being a huge success that helped further the feminist movement in the 1960's. Chopin maty not have known it but even though it was not in her lfuie time she did end up helping the feminist movement in s very important way that no one could have guessed while she was alive. She wrote several very important stories about color issues as well though these did better while she was alive than her feminist ones were.

Chopin, Kate."from The Awakening" Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffery D. Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 491. Print.

"Meet Kate Chopin." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffery D. Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 551. Print.

Chopin, Kate "The Story of an Hour." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffery D. Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 554. Print.