Kate Chopin as Feminist in The Story of an Hour (1894) & The Awakening (1899)

Abstract

The feminist movement is defined to have been the support in all aspects of life of most western women. By the late 18th century and in the beginning of the 19th century, feminism emerged to affect positively the status of women, by granting them the right of being equal to men in different aspects of life as well as the right of voting and working. Kate Chopin, as one of the brilliant writers at that time in America opted for a pre-emptive feminist inclination in her works to be concerned as a precursor of feminism in America. In The story of An Hour (1894), The Awakening (1899), the selected works under study, she contextualized her ideas of women self-expression, social and sexual freedom in face of women’s suffering under the authoritative husbands and the unhappy marriages of the 19th century America. The female protagonists in Chopin’s selected works strived to gain freedom, social and sexual, and to express themselves freely via art. Those freedoms were not easily realizable at that time in America, but Chopin made it easy for her female characters to swim against the tide and paint a new portrait for American women.