Proposal †Story of an Hour Essay

Topic: The hidden feminism in â€Å"Story of an Hour†. My objective is to reveal author Kate Chopin’s feminist message in â€Å"Story of an Hour†, by identifying key elements of the short story. The main elements I want to focus on is Mrs. Mallard’s attitude toward the conflict in the story, I think that showed a feminist attitude. Mrs. Mallard’s every action and words exerted feminism, how she truly felt about her marriage was finally exposed. I would like to also pinpoint the acts of feminism during the time that this story was written that could possibly relate to each other. Thesis: Mrs. Mallard’s reaction of excitement to her husbands death revealed a feminist view of how most women truly felt and thought about their husbands back then. Questions to address: If this was Chopins way of expressing feminism, why would she do it in a form of ironic writing? Since â€Å"The Story of an Hour† was written a little over 10 years after the time the death of Chopin’s first husband’s death similar to Mrs. Mallards? Did majority of women, back in those days, feel oppressed about their marriage like Mrs. Mallards did? In the story, Mrs. Mallard is diagnosed with heart disease, was this her true cause of death or was it â€Å"the joy that killed†? Did Chopin use Mrs. Mallard’s death as a form of guilt for being excited for her husband’s supposed death? Methodology: The sources that I intend on using for this assignment are reader’s journals from Galileo and other similar sites, that are written on â€Å"Story of an Hour†, and also secondary source books from my school library. The articles that I plan to utilize are the ones that have feminist references to â€Å"Story of an Hour†. I will those references in particular to support my argument. In addition I intend on using is a former reader response I have written on the character of Mrs. Mallard. By using this reader response as another secondary source, I am going to relate a few references to my argument and support that as well.