The Story of an Hour | The Theme of Female Self-Assertion
In the following essay, the author discusses the theme of female self-assertion as it relates to ''The Story of an Hour.''
In Donald F. Larsson's entry on Kate Chopin in Critical Survey of Short Fiction, we learn that "consistently ... strong-willed, independent heroines ... [who] cast a skeptical eye on the institution of marriage" are very characteristic of her stories. In "The Story of an Hour," we do not so much see as intuit Mrs. Mallard's skeptical eye. Certainly, we are told of the joy she feels with the freedom she finds in her husband's death, but we are not specifically told that she is skeptical of marriage in general. Indeed, if we take the last line of the story literally, we would...
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