AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
DWI EKASARI ARIYANI Student Number : 024214077
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
2007
iv
Lov e is under st anding.
Lov e does not judge or condemn.
Lov e list ens and under st ands.
Lov e car es and sympat hises.
Lov e accept s and f or giv es.
Lov e know s no bar r ier s.
For
My belov ed Par ent s
My Baby Sist er and Br ot her
My Big Big Br ot her
and All My Best Fr iends w her ev er They ar e
May God Bless all
one very important chapter of my life. With His guidance and love this thesis was finally completed.
Secondly I want to send millions of thanks and gratitude to my beloved Mother and Father. I am extremely blessed of having such wonderful parents who always stand behind me to support me every time I needed them. I want also to thank my sweet baby sister Lya who always gives me laughter, my handsome baby brother Riff, and my dearest big brother Dedy.
I would also like to give enormous appreciation to my advisor Dra. Th. Enny Anggraini, M.A. and my co-advisor Ni Luh Putu Rosiandani, S.S., M.Hum. for their time and understanding in helping me finishing my thesis. Huge thanks also for my best friends Lissa, Novita, Yurince, Bonar, and Supri who always be the brightest light in my darkest days. I also thank my beloved closest friends who color my days: Na, Teax, Citrud Acid, Tegoy, Mbak Pichachu, Adek, Echo, Evoy, Shella, Parjo, Kuncup, Citra, and all “Right You Are If You Think You Are” crews. May God always be with you.
Dwi Ekasari Ariyani
ACCEPTANCE PAGE ... iii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION... 1
A. Background of the Study ... 1
B. Problem Formulation ... 4
C. Objectives of the Study ... 5
D. Definition of Terms... 5
CHAPTER II THEORITICAL REVIEW... 7
A. Review of Related Studies ... 7
B. Review of Related Theories... 10
1. Theories on Character and Characterization... 10
2. Theories on Plot ... 13
3. Theories on Feminism... 14
4. Theories on Feminist Attitude ... 23
C. The Review on the Social Condition in Nineteenth Century in America Especially the Convention of Marriage and Motherhood... 24
D. Theoretical Framework ... 29
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY... 31
A. Object of the Study ... 31
B. Approach of the Study ... 33
C. Method of the Study... 35
CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS... 37
A. The Position of the Female Characters in Kate Chopin’s Short Stories “The Story of an Hour”, “The Storm”, “A Pair of Silk Stockings”, and “Athénaïse” in Their Families and in the Society... 37
B. The Oppression Faced by The Female Characters in Their Families and Society ... 48
C. The Female Characters’ Attitude toward the Oppression... 58
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION... 63
Appendix 2 The Summary of “The Storm” ... 69 Appendix 3 The Summary of “A Pair of Silk Stockings” ... 70 Appendix 4 The Summary of “Athénaïse” ... 70
Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.
This thesis is a study of feminism seen from Kate Chopin’s short stories “The Story of an Hour”, “The Storm”, “A Pair of Silk Stockings”, and “Athénaïse”. Chopin was a well known female writer whose works stressed on feminist issues. She was said by Toth to be “a pioneer of her time.” Interested in Chopin’s works along with her desire to learn about feminism more, the writer chose this topic.
This study is to find out how the female characters in Chopin’s short stories were positioned in their families and in the society. Its aim is also to study how they were oppressed in their families and in the society. This study is also to learn how their attitude toward the oppression.
The method of this study is library research. The primary and secondary sources are Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, “The Storm”, “A Pair of Silk Stockings”, “Athénaïse”, and some theories on character, plot, and feminism. A review on the social condition in nineteenth century in America especially the convention of marriage and womanhood is also gathered to enrich the writer’s knowledge in order to analyze her topic.
From the analysis, the writer found out that the female characters in Chopin’s short stories who represented the women in the nineteenth century have been positioned inferior, submissive, dependent, and domestic in their families and in the society. In their families, they have been oppressed by their marriage and motherhood. In the society, they have been oppressed by the social stereotypes that women were dependent to men and by the lack of equal rights and educational opportunities. The writer also found out that the female characters have showed their rebellion toward the oppression. They rebelled through their feelings that they were unhappy and oppressed with their marriage, their beliefs that marriage should not oppress women, and their actions of rebelling which were different one another.
Fakultas Sastra, Unib\versitas Sanata Dharma.
Skripsi ini adalah studi feminisme yang dilihat dari cerita pendek Kate Chopin “The Story of an Hour”, “The Storm”, “A Pair of Silk Stockings”, and “Athénaïse”. Chopin adalah seorang pengarang wanita terkenal yang karya-karyanya menitik-beratkan pada isu-isu feminisme. Toth mengatakan bahwa Chopin adalah “pelopor eranya.” Penulis memilih topic ini karena tertarik pada karya Chopin dan karena penulis ingin lebih mempelajari feminisme.
Studi ini bertujuan untuk mencari tahu bagaimana karakter-karakter perempuan di cerita pendek Chopin diposisikan di keluarga mereka and di masyarakat. Tujuan lain studi ini juga untuk melihat bagaimana mereka ditindas di keluarga mereka dan di masyarakat. Tujuan lain dari studi ini juga untuk mempelajari bagaimana sikap mereka terhadap tindasan tersebut.
Metode studi ini adalah penelitian pustaka. Data utama dan sekunder adalah cerita-cerita pendek Chopin “The Story of an Hour”, “The Storm”, “A Pair of Silk Stockings”, “Athénaïse”, dan beberapa teori tentang karakter, plot, dan feminisme. Gambaran tentang kondisi sosial pada abad sembilan belas di Amerika terutama pada adat pernikahan dan keibuan juga dikumpulkan untuk memperkaya pandangan penulis dalam menganalisa topiknya.
Dari analisa, penulis mendapati bahwa karakter-karakter perempuan di cerita-cerita pendek Chopin yang mewakili wanita-wanita pada abad sembilan belas telah diposisikan dengan status yang lebih rendah, patuh, bergantung dan domestik di keluarga mereka dan di masyarakat. Di keluarga mereka, mereka ditindas oleh pernikahan dan keibuan mereka. Di masyarakat, mereka ditindas oleh stereotype sosial bahwa wanita bergantung pada pria dan oleh kurangnya persamaan hak dan kesempatan yang sama untuk memperoleh pendidikan. Penulis juga mendapati bahwa karakter-karakter perempuan ini telah menunjukkan pemberontakan mereka terhadap penindasan yang mereka alami. Mereka memberontak melalui perasaan mereka yang tidak bahagia dan merasa tertindas oleh pernikahan mereka, melalui kepercayaan mereka bahwa pernikahan seharusnya tidak menindas wanita, dan melalui tindakan pemberontakan mereka yang berbeda satu sama lain.
A. Background of the Study
There are many definitions about literature and its functions, depending on
the point of view used. Expressive theories believe that literature is a product of
the authors’ perceptions, thoughts, and feeling (Abrams, 1975:22). Meanwhile,
pragmatic theories believe that literature is made on a purpose, which is to achieve
certain effects in an audience or reader. Literature imitates only as a means to the
proximate end of pleasing, and pleases, it turns out, only as a means to the
ultimate end of teaching (Abrams, 1975:14).
Sunaryono Basuki Koesnosoebroto says in The Anatomy of Prose Fiction
that literature has its roots in one of the most basic human desires, i.e., the desire
for pleasure. Literature exists to please us by imitating life, or more precisely, by
displaying its writers’ vision of life as it is or as the writers think it should be.
However enjoyment alone is not sufficient without understanding (1988:1-2).
We are brought by the writers to the enjoyment as well as understanding
while we are reading literature. This understanding, according to Graham Little in
Approach to Literature: An Introduction to Critical Study of Content and Method in Writing, is also an expression of reality (1981:90). According to Little, when we read literary works, we see reality as what the writers see.
Reading Kate Chopin’s works, which are mostly in the form of short
stories, we can see a reflection of reality of the lives of the women in her era, or
wants to say. “The Story of an Hour”, “The Storm”, “A Pair of Silk Stockings”,
and “Athénaïse” are Chopin’s short stories which may reflect what she saw in her
society, a reality about how women were oppressed by their families and society,
how they reacted toward it and rebelled against it.
In writing her works, Chopin wants to bring her readers into an awareness
that women are living in pressure. However not only that, she also wants to show
that women are not weaker than men, and that women must struggle to reach
equality.
Hans P. Guth and Gabriel L. Rico in Discovering Literature say in their
review on Chopin that Chopin, in her novel and other fiction, dealt with topics
that were to become major themes of feminist literature: a woman’s right to rebel
against a stifling marriage, to reject the traditional idea that a woman should
“sacrifice herself for her children,” and to have the same freedom to fulfill her
emotional and sexual needs that men were taking for granted (1997:396).
In “The Story of an Hour”, “The Storm”, “A Pair of Silk Stockings”, and
“Athénaïse”, Mrs. Mallard, Calixta, Mrs. Sommers, and Athénaïse are the female
protagonists and the central characters in the stories who are suffering for their
status as a woman, a wife and a mother. They are all burdened by their status as
women, their marital status, and their duties as a mother who is labored by their
household task responsibilities. They all represent women in general who are
discriminated by the society constructed by the male domination.
Women from past until today have been suffering for their status as a
woman. Women are constructed by the society to be inferior, weak, passive,
dependent and inessential. Aristotle says, “The female is a female by virtue of a
certain lack of qualities, we should regard the female nature as afflicted with a
natural defectiveness.” And St Thomas pronounced woman to be an ‘imperfect
man’, an ‘incidental’ being (Humm, 1992:47).
Women are poor creatures with bodies full of weaknesses. Women are
more difficult to grow muscle that they do not have the same physical strength as
men. Women have uterus as that is why women undergo menstruation, which
cause them to be more emotional. Because of the uterus also, women carry the
child and give birth. Having the breast, women feed and take care of the child. De
Beauvoir says “Women are the victims of maternity and menstruation.” Women
are conditioned to master the domestic area as men are conditioned to master the
world outside the house, the world of achievements. Women have the
responsibilities of taking care of the house and the children, while men produce
the food and other needs. Women have been trapped inside their houses, out of the
world of achievement, money and power.
Humm says that Socialist and Marxism feminism see family as the
institution which has constructed the oppression and gender difference to women,
and which has transformed women to be the tools of reproduction for the society.
Family, according to Humm, is “a miniature political economy with its own
division of labor (1990:68).”
In writing such issues on women, Kate Chopin was harshly criticized by
her readers and critics, both men and women. Bad reviews were given to criticize
her works. Her works had to be banned for publishing because Chopin’s works
were considered to be too open on sexual details as in The Storm. Not until seven
decades later, when feminism is spread, were her works appreciated by her
readers and resulting her fame as one of those who dare to expose women issues.
The writer believes that the topic of feminism is still important to discuss,
as the dream has not been achieved fully. Feminism is also the fight for human
rights for equality, similar to slavery. Women have been slaved for hundreds of
years by the society. Women have their rights to be equal to men. The other
reasons are also because the works of Kate Chopin are worth discussing and Kate
Chopin herself is said to be was “a pioneer of her time, in her portrayal of
women’s desires and independence and control of their own.” Many of Chopin’s
works have received many attention and appreciation. Her figure as the life
support for her children as her husband passed away by writing and her bravery to
write such a controversial issues which caused her into harsh criticisms and ban
are admirable.
B. Problem Formulation
In analyzing her topic, the writer formulates some questions to help her in
discussing Chopin’s short stories. They are:
1. How are the female characters positioned in their families and in the society?
2. How are the female characters oppressed in their families and society?
3. What attitudes do the female characters have which show the result of the
oppression they face?
C. Objective
The objectives of this study are to understand how the female characters
are positioned in their families and in the society, to find out how they are
oppressed in their families and society, and to see what attitudes they have which
show the result of the oppression they face.
D. Definition of Terms
In order to avoid misunderstanding, the writer provides some definitions
on character, female, family, attitude and feminism. A character is presumably an
imagined person who inhabits a story (Kennedy and Gioia, 1998:60). Female is a
term reserved in feminist theory for the purely biological aspect of sexual
difference with ‘feminine’ as the term for the social construction of women
(Humm, 1990:71-72). Kate Millet, in Humm’s The Dictionary of Feminist
Theory, describes family as a patriarchal unit within a patriarchal whole – mediating between the individual and the social structure (1990:68). Attitude is
“the manner of acting, feeling, or thinking that show one’s dispositions or
opinion” stated in Webster’s 20th Century Dictionary. Albert J. Lott states in
“Social Psychology” that attitude is “a tendency or disposition to evaluate an
object or symbol of that object in a certain way” (1973:921). He stated that
attitude structure is being composed into three components; affective or emotional
component which refers to the feelings of good or bad, cognitive component
which is viewed as the information, knowledge and beliefs and behavioral or
action component which described the response preposition associated with
attitude. Feminism, according to Terry, can be described as a belief and a
commitment to equal rights and opportunities for women (1989:139). Humm in
The Dictionary of Feminist Theory says feminism has only working definition since it is a dynamic, constantly changing ideology with many aspects including
the personal, political and the philosophical. Feminism is a call to action. Without
action, feminism is merely an empty rhetoric that canals itself out (1990:140).
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
In this chapter, the writer gives review of related studies and review of
related theories. They are given to support the writer’s idea in analyzing her topic
and also to give more information and back-ups so that the writer would not be
misleading in her analysis. The review of related studies is the review on Chopin’s
works, especially her short stories “The Story of an Hour”, “The Storm”, “A Pair
of Silk Stockings”, and “Athénaïse”, along with the review on the author, Kate
Chopin. Most of them are taken from the internet. In the review of related
theories, the writer provides theories on character and characterization, theories on
plot, theories on symbol, and theories on feminism. They are taken from books on
literature. These theories help the writer in studying and analyzing her topic.
A. Review of Related Studies
Chopin’s most works are short stories. Many researchers have discussed
her short stories, such as “The Story of an Hour”, “The Storm”, “A Pair of Silk
Stockings”, and “Athénaïse”. Most of them discussed her writings in their roles of
expressing women issues.
Hans P. Guth and Gabriel L. Rico in Discovering Literature say in their
review on Chopin that Chopin, in her novel and other fiction, dealt with topics
that were to become major themes of feminist literature, “a woman’s right to rebel
against a stifling marriage, to reject the traditional idea that a woman should
“sacrifice herself for her children,” and to have the same freedom to fulfill her
emotional and sexual needs that men were taking for granted” (1997:396).
Jonny Goodyear in his essay “Kill Husband: Comparing Marge Piercy and
Kate Chopin” written on September 11, 2005, analyzes Kate Chopin’s “The Story
of an Hour” by comparing it with Marge Piercy’s poem, "What's that smell in the
Kitchen?” Both works, according to Goodyear, reflect marital unhappiness, specifically, unhappy wives. Mrs. Mallard in Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”,
according to Goodyear, is not self-aware of it during her marriage. Goodyear
connects the heart problem Mrs. Mallard’s suffering as the cause of her none
understanding of why she feels bad. He says, “Mrs. Mallard fears the realization
that she is unhappy in her marriage, and she fights it. It is possible that she is
afraid of feeling guilty” (2005:2). In contrast, the wives in Piercy's poem have a
keen understanding of their feelings. He says, “They are American wives who are
dissatisfied by their role as housewife. The husbands used to pay attention to the
wives and make them feel loved, but now the wives are ignored and
unappreciated, which makes them angry. The wives also are dissatisfied with their
lives because they are strictly confined to the domestic realm. They are fed up
with the tedium of endless household tasks” (2005:2).
Another researcher wrote in “Kate Chopin Gives a Woman’s Voice to
Realism” that both Chopin’s works “The Storm” and “A Pair of Silk Stockings” are about a woman’s responsibilities to her family, her community, and herself
and the need to be independent (2004:4).
Linda J. Byrd wrote in her essay “Maternal Influence and Children in
Kate Chopin’s Short Fiction“ that the care of children can be not only a great joy but also a great limitation on a woman’s freedom in “A Pair of Silk Stockings”
(2000:2).
Martha J. Cutter's in her essay “Gender Roles in Kate Chopin's Short
Stories: An Annotated Bibliography” says;
Kate Chopin's short stories often include male and female gender roles that are sometimes challenged by the female characters in the stories. Most of her short stories, including "Desiree's Baby" and "The Story of an Hour," show females that undergo a transformation from weak and dependent on their husbands to stronger, more independent women. Desiree from "Desiree's Baby" and Louise Mallard from "The Story of an Hour" are examples of women changing throughout the story. Kate Chopin's short fiction also often incorporated "resistance to patriarchal discourse," as discussed in essay (1994:17-24).
To discuss on a work of art, we cannot separate it from its author. Chopin
is a very interesting female author to discuss as she was “a pioneer of her time, in
her portrayal of women’s desires and independence and control of their own,”
says Emily Toth. Her believe to speak up for the sake of women’s rights to get
freedom in her writings was criticized harshly by the critics and readers of her
time. Some sources even say that as the consequences of her openness in
exploring sexual desires of her female characters, especially in The Storm and The
Awakening, her works were given bad reviews and were banned from publication. Not until seven decades, when feminist writings were appreciated, that her works
were spread and received as master piece (Deter, 2006:4-5).
During her lifetime, from 1850 until 1904, women did not have the right to
vote, marriage was regarded as a sacred institution that was never to be
questioned, and few divorces were granted. In this era, a woman writing about
female independence would not be well-received, and indeed, Chopin's short
stories were frequently rejected for publication because they were deemed
immoral (http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1751175).
All the review of related studies on Chopin’s short stories above are to
support the writer’s idea that all Chopin’s works are about women who are
unhappy because of the oppression they have to face as the consequences as being
a woman, housewife and mother. Their desires to be independent crash with the
fact that they have children and husbands to take care of. Being a woman, they are
forced to live away from the life of achievement outside the house. Their
household tasks and their responsibilities to their husband and children become
the causes of the oppression they faced. The writer is different from the earlier
researchers above as she discusses how Chopin reveals the idea of feminism
through her short stories with the approach of not only feminism in general, but
also the approaches of Radical, Marxist, and Liberal Feminism.
B. Review of Related Theories
1. Theories on Character and Characterization
In A Glossary of Literary Terms, Abrams defines the term ‘character’ into
“the person presented in a dramatic or narrative work, who is interpreted by the
reader as being endowed with moral and dispositional quality that is expressed in
what he says -the dialogue- and by what he does –the action” (1981:20).
Forster, in Aspects of the Novel, introduces two kinds of characters; flat
and round characters. A flat character is also called a type or ‘two dimensional’.
Forster says that this type of character is built around ‘a single idea or quality’ and
is presented without much individualizing detail. With this condition, therefore it
is enough to describe flat character into a single phrase or sentence only. Different
from flat character, a round character is complex in temperament and motivation.
It is represented with subtle particularity. With this condition, it is difficult to
describe this type of character in a phrase or sentence. Like most people in
general, their characters sometimes are unpredictable: therefore they are capable
to make the readers surprise (Abrams, 1981:20).
Perrine differentiates fictional characters into static and dynamic
characters. Static characters are characters that do not undergo any specific
changes either in their outlooks, attitudes, or personalities during the course of the
story. They remain stable from the beginning until the end of the story. They are
described without much detail and they are not changed by circumstances. In
another hand, developing or dynamic characters are characters who undergo
changes in some aspects of their characters, personalities, or outlooks from the
beginning to the end of the story. The change could be for better or for the worse.
It can be a large or small change, but whatever the change is, it becomes
something important and basic (1971:21).
Characters in a story are different from one another because they have
certain personalities and ‘physical attributes’ that distinguish them. The process
used by the author to create characters is called characterization (Rohrberger and
Woods, 1971:20). In Understanding Unseen, Murphy defines nine methods of
characterization; they are:
a. Personal description
It is author’s description of a person’s apprearances and clothes. Here, the
author describes the character in details.
b. Characters as seen by another
Besides describing a character directly, the author can describe his of her
character through other’s perspective and opinion. Through this, the readers
may get a reflected image.
c. Speech
The author gives a description of character through what the person says. The
author presents some clues to character whenever he states his or her opinion.
d. Past Life
The author gives the readers some keys or clues to any event that have helped
to shape a person’s character, so that we can learn something about the
character’s past life. This can be done by some ways, such as direct comment
by the author, through the person’s thoughts, his or her conversation, or
through the medium of another person.
e. Conversation of others
Through other people’s conversation and the things that they say about
someone, the author can also give us clues to someone’s character. Usually,
people talk about people, and the things that they say give us a clue to the
character of the person spoken about.
f. Reaction
Someone’s character can also be observed by knowing how he or she reacts to
various situations and events that are presented by the author.
g. Direct Comment
The author can describe or give comment on someone’s character directly. By
giving comments explicitly, the readers will understand what kind of person
he or she is.
h. Thoughts
The readers are able to find out someone’s character through the direct
knowledge of what a person has in mind presented by the author. Here, the
readers have a privileged position to come to the in most thoughts of a person
in a story.
i. Mannerism
At last, the readers are able to know someone’s character by observing his or
her mannerism and habits presented by the author in the story (1972:161-173).
The nine methods above are ways that the author leads the readers to understand
characters in the story. Usually, an author does not use one of these methods
exclusively, but generally blends them skillfully.
2. Theories on Plot
Based on Literature: Structure, Sound and Sense, plot is “the sequence of
incidents or events of which a story is composed” (Perrine, 1956:43). It consists
of cause and effect relationship. There is a linked event that may include not only
physical occurrence like in speech or action, but also a character’s change of
attitude, a flash of insight and decision (Stanton, 1965:14). The plot is arranged to
make the readers become more interested in the story. The linked series of events
arouse their curiosity on what will happen next. The readers will be persuaded to
read until the end, and thus, they will find the resolution for the conflicts. The plot
has kept the readers’ interest.
Baldick divides plot into three categories, such as the beginning, middle,
and ending (1990:171). In the plot of a story, conflict has become an important
element (Stanton, 1965:16). The conflicts come from two sides, inside and outside
the characters. The internal conflicts happens when they are conflicting ideas
within the characters, while the external conflict appears when there is different
action or idea between the characters themselves or between the characters and
their environment such as society, culture, and the physical appearance of place,
or even between the environments themselves. Thus, “the conflict may be
physical, mental, emotional, or moral” (Perrine, 1965:44).
3. Theories on Feminism
Feminism as many other studies is very complex. This study has
developed through time as well as through the development of women movement.
The women movement emerged during the 1800s. Judith Hole and Ellen Levine
say in their essay The First Feminists that feminism emerged in the “time of
geographic expansion, industrial development, growth of social reform
movements, and a general intellectual ferment with a philosophical emphasis on
individual freedom, the “rights of man,” and universal education.” According to
Jo Freeman, although sometime during the 1920s, feminism died in the United
States, in the early 1960s, feminism slowly awoke from the dead (1979: 543).
These two eras are called First Wave and Second Wave by Maggie Humm in her
book, Feminisms: A Reader. According to Humm, both eras are different to each
other.
In broad terms, twentieth-century feminists choose one of the two positions: largely, first wave feminism (which might be said to end with Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) centres on debates about materialism, about women’s individual and collective social and political interests and self-determination. In second wave feminism the arguments are concerned with materiality – moral solidarities created by feminist standpoints and identities based on differences which include women’s material, psychic and affiliative strengths.
Feminism can be divided into four, such as Liberal Feminism, Marxist
Feminism, Radical Feminism, and Socialist Feminism. Liberal Feminism,
according to Humm in The Dictionary of Feminist Theory, believes that the roots
of women’s oppression are caused by the lack of equal rights and educational
opportunities for women. Humm says that “Liberal feminism argues for
individual fulfillment free from the structures of highly defined sex roles”
(1990:119).
Radical Feminism, as Humm states in The Dictionary of Feminist Theory, focuses “on the root of male domination and claims that all forms of oppression are extensions of male supremacy” (Humm, 1990:155). Radical
Feminism, unlike Liberal Feminism, believes that the women’s oppression is not
only economic but also psychological. Humm states that “Focusing upon
consciousness and culture on the one hand and the unconscious on the other,
radical feminists analyse the psychic, sexual and ideological structures which
differentiate the sexes in relation to the lived inequalities of gender” (Humm,
1990:184).
Marxist Feminism refuses the “biology” idea as the basic gender
differentiation, where a husband is described the bourgeois class and a woman the
oppressed class. Marxist feminism focuses on the destruction of capitalism as a
way to liberate women and states that capitalism, which gives rise to economic
dependence, is the root of women’s oppression. Marxist Feminists recognize that
women are oppressed, and attribute the oppression to the capitalist or private
property system. Because of that, they insist that the only way to end the
oppression is to overthrow the capitalist system (Engel, 1845).
Socialist Feminism, stated by Humm, believes that women are
second-class citizen in patriarchal capitalism which depends for its survival on the
exploitation of working people, and on the special exploitation of women. We
need to transform not only the ownership of the means of production, but also the
total economic system of capitalism (Humm, 1990:213).
As stated above, the writer will discuss the thesis with the theories of
Radical and Liberal Feminism as the writer believes that women were oppressed
because of the lack of equal rights and educational opportunities which caused
them to economically dependent, and that the oppression of women was not only
economical, but also psychological. The approaches may differ or against each
other, but the writer emphasizes on gathering the theories to find a broader
explanation.
To discuss about women, the writer feels that it should be divided into
three parts, such as women and their position in society, women and marriage, and
women and motherhood, in order to make it easier.
a. Women and Their Position in Society
In many part of the world, from past to present, women have been
disadvantaged by her being a female. Their status in all aspects of life is
conditioned lower than men by the society. They are constructed since they are
born that they are dependent, passive, and weak. Simone de Beauvoir quotes
Aristotle and St Thomas in her book The Second Sex,
‘The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities,’ said Aristotle; ‘we should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness.’ And St Thomas for his part pronounced woman to be an ‘imperfect man’, an ‘incidental’ being (1992:47).
In the same parts de Beauvoir also quotes Benda’s opinion written in her
Rapport d’Uriel: “Man can think of himself without woman. She cannot think of herself without man” (1992:47). She gives an opinion of her own to conclude the
others’, that woman is simply than what man decrees; thus she is called ‘the sex’,
by which is meant that she appears essentially to the male as a sexual being. For
him she is sex-absolute sex, no less. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute-she is
the Other (de Beauvoir, 1992:47).
These are not caused by simply a year or two process of time, but instead
this social construction has happened for hundreds of years. Women for ages have
been constructed to believe and accept it. Susan Martin said in her essay “Sexual
harassment: The Link between gender stratification, sexuality, and women’s economic status” that our society has consumed the sex-role norms for ages. People learn the cultural norms for attitudes and behaviors appropriate to their
sex. They learn how to think and act as men or as women. These sex-role norms
which they learn are not only different, but also reflect sexual inequality. Martin
said, “Women are not born weak, passive, dependent, and receptive to male
initiation; they are socially conditioned to develop these inequalities. Similarly,
men learn that they are expected to be strong, dominant, independent, aggressive,
and the initiators of sexual interaction” (Women, 1979:61).
Ashley Montagu mentions in The Natural Superiority of Women that
women have been conditioned to believe that they are inferior to men, and it
seems that people’s thought and belief about this condition is acceptable and
naturally true (1953:23).
…women’s place is in the home…women should not meddle in men’s affairs’ (1953:23-24)
Fakih stated in his book Gender Analysis and Social Transformation that
the existence of stereotypes in the society, especially those who keep tightly the
patriarchal values, always puts women in disadvantage. Stereotype based on
gender differences are usually found in society. In the society, women are
considered to be submissive, fragile, sensitive, dependent and emotional while
men are aggressive, strong, insensitive, independent, and rational. The stereotype
creates the negative impact on women as women are not allowed to participate in
larger social life.
These stereotypes, according to Fakih, brought women into
marginalization. The marginalization of women is a process of leading women to
a marginal position in economic arena. Their roles in economic activities become
less significant because of excluding them from the important positions.
Marginalization of women is allowed to exist by the governmental policies,
religious, and culture interpretations, social norms and scientific considerations
(Fakih, 1996: 14). This makes the impact on the existence of poverty in society as
women who account for great number of society are not allowed to participate in
economic activities that make the income. The implication is that their status of
social life is lower than men.
The marginalization of women is caused by men as they, according to
Engels, have the surplus wealth from the state, social stratification, and control of
property (Women, 1979:95). Men can control women because they have
monopolized the world of achievements. Women are left with nothingness but
duties on household tasks and child care.
b. Women and Marriage
Humm states in The Dictionary of Feminist Theory that marriage is “the
institution which traditionally provides women with a social identity” (1990:127).
As a woman is married, she will have the title “Mrs.” followed by her husband’s
last name and become the property of her husband. Marxist Feminism argues that
marriage is a labor contract in which the husband’s appropriation of unpaid labor
for his wife constitutes a domestic mode of production and a patriarchal mode of
exploitation (Humm, 1990:127).
Radical feminism, stated in Humm’s The Dictionary of Feminist Theory,
says:
Marriage is as a form of compulsory heterosexuality whose main aim is to control women’s sexuality by tying her to her husband. This combined with men’s control over women, women’s labor in house work, makes marriage the central source of women’s oppression under patriarchy (1990:128).
Humm also gives some aspects of marriage. First, it is the site where
categories of gender are reproduced. Second, it is the site of sexual division of
labor and women’s subordination. Third, it is the model for other social institution
of sexual norm. Humm also tells that sociologists and historians suggest marriage
as “a simple social contract” which is closely related with the reproduction of
children (Humm, 1990:128).
Gilman explains that marriage is the only women’s world. Women’s
dependency to marriage is caused by women’s dependency to men. The economic
structure in the society makes women become consumer but they are not allowed
to be involved in economic world. They have to choose marriage because in
marriage they can get food, clothes, goods, leisure, etc from their husbands as
private servants.
Marriage becomes a symbol of one of the source of women’s oppression.
Bressler says that women must reject marriage as their ultimate goal to financially
support and dependent to husband. They must also reject the idea that women are
mindless, weepy, passive, and helpless that needs a man to rescue them and make
their lives meaningful (Bressler, 1994:180).
Marynia Farnham, in her essay The Lost Sex printed in Fairchild’s The
Way of the Woman, states that two of reasons which make American women so unhappy are because of marriage and women’s responsibilities in marriage.
Marriage, one of the cardinal indices of the relation between men and women, is
having a terrible time, which may cause unhappiness toward women. Women
have to bear a very heavy part of the load of family burdens, so that many of the
difficulties reflect on them. These reflections find women in an uncomfortable,
unhappy, and certainly unwanted position (1956:27-29).
c. Women and Motherhood
Michele Hoffnung says in her essay Motherhood: Contemporary conflict
for women reprinted in Freeman’s Women that society sets an assumption that mother and child are a unit which is basic, universal, and psychologically most
suited for both the healthy development of the child and the fulfillment of the
mother (1979:124). This assumption which is accepted as a motherhood mystique
because raising children is useful work which is necessary for the continuation of
society, satisfying to human generative impulses, and highly valued has set
women into a trap for their important aspects of their lives, such as their
productive work, companionate marriage, and economic independence. Women
are taken away from the world of achievement, power and money because
mothering is done at home (1979:124).
Hoofnung also defines 4 other aspects of motherhood mystique, such as:
(1) ultimate fulfillment as a woman is achieved by becoming a mother; (2) the
body of work assigned to mothers-caring of child, home, and husband-fits
together in a noncontradictory manner; (3) to be a good mother, a woman must
like being a mother and all the works that go with it; (4) a woman’s intense,
exclusive devotion to mothering is good for her children (1979:128). These
mystiques are forced to women to be accepted as true. Since they are young,
women have been prepared to be mothers. It is believed that after women have
delivered children, they are “real” women (1979:128).
Doing mother-work, women have suffered a great lost. Mother-work done
by women with great responsibilities does not give in return material rewards as
men’s employment. Mothering together with housekeeping is not considered as
productive work; rather it conflicts with work or career. Hence, it limits a
woman’s independence, achievement, earnings, and status (1979:128).
Not only mothering caused material costs for women, Hoffnung says, it
also caused an internal psychological conflict in women as they decide to obtain
individual achievement or to fulfill their feminine responsibility.
Carole J. Sheffield used, in her essay Sexual Terrorism printed in
Freeman’s Women: A Feminist Perspective, the words ‘sexual terrorism’ to
explain how men have terrorized women. Women-of all ages, races, and classes,
according to Sheffield, are the targets of sexual terrorism. The word ‘terrorism’ is
defined different to the definition we are familiar with nowadays by the image of
bombing or airplane hijackings. Instead this is “one that so pervades our culture
which we have learned to live with it as though it were the natural order of things”
(1979:3). Sexual terrorism is a system by which men control and dominate
women by frightening women. The examples of the common characteristic of
sexual terrorism are rape, wife battery, incest, pornography, harassment, all forms
of sexual violence. The writer found it very interesting as Sheffield defined rape
as “an act of aggression and possession, not sexuality. Unnecessary
hysterectomies are extraordinary abuses of power rooted in man’s concept of
woman as primary a reproductive being and in his need to assert power over
reproduction.” Women, Beauvoir says in her essay “The Second Sex”, are “the
victims of maternity and menstruation” (1992:46). Women are tools for men for
the reproduction.
Being a member of a family, women are not how they are defined as the
partner of their husbands. Within family, it is believed that things that are done
outside the home are for money, inside they are for love (1979:125). Women are
the provider of comfort and love for the husbands and children as they returned
home. Yet, these things which had put women into prison have changed the love
into a burden and unhappiness, even regret. The full-time job of homemaking and
child care has carried none of economic benefits as well as achievements
(Hoffnung, 1979:125).
4. Theories on Feminist Attitude
Because in the problem formulation the writer discusses the attitude of the
female characters toward the oppression, she provides also the opinion of some
feminists who has their own attitude as a woman. Mary Wollstonecraft states that
“Women must stand up for their rights and not allow their male-dominated society
to define what it means to be a woman. Women themselves must take the lead and
articulate that they are and what role they will play in society. Most importantly,
they must reject the patriarchal assumption that women are inferior to men”
(1994:181).
Virginia Woolf says in Bressler’s Literary Criticism: An Introduction to
Theory and Practice that “Women must reject this social construct and establish their own identity. Women must challenge the prevailing, false cultural notions
concerning their gender identity and develop a female discourse that will
accurately portray their relationship ‘to the world of reality’ and not ‘to the world
of men’ (Woolf, 1994:182).”
Meanwhile, Simone de Beauvoir states that “Women must break the bonds
of her patriarchal society and define herself if she wishes to become a significant
human being in her own right and defy male classification as the Other” (de
Beauvoir, 1994:182). Moreover, de Beauvoir states that “Women see themselves
as autonomous being. Women, she maintains, must reject the social construct that
men are the subject or the absolute and that women are ‘the other’” (de Beauvoir,
1990:182).
C. The Review on the Social Condition in Nineteenth Century in America Especially the Convention of Marriage and Womanhood.
Maciver says in Society: An Introductory Analysis that society is “a system
of usage and procedures, of authority and mutual aid, of many groupings and
divisions, of controls of human behavior and of liberties. American society, as
many other societies, is patriarchy, where men are the head of the family, and
women are marked subordinate. Women could not own property in her own right,
and she had no standing before the law over against her husband.
Maciver discusses the patriarchal family in England and America as:
In the eighteenth-century England scarcely any career or any public position was open to women-unless they were queens. A woman had few property rights, beyond a dower which went to her at her husband’s death. On her marriage her property vested in her husband, and even such earnings as she might acquire by her own labors belonged to her husband. At law she was treated as a “minor” or a “ward.” The family was still an economic unit owned and managed by the husband (1937:250).
Maciver says that although there were some changes happen to the structure of the
society in the end of eighteenth century, patriarchal rule, with its subordination of
women, still flourished until the nineteenth century felt the impact of the new
economic forces which the eighteenth had brought to birth (1937:251).
The nineteenth century in America which is called Victorian Age is a kind
of transformation era where the major theme of it is changes. The aspects of life
changed as the era of agriculture changed to industrial. Mass productions,
transportations and communications increased rapidly while towns and cities
began to develop. Urbanization was one of the changes. Darwin’s Evolution
Theory, Higher Criticism of Bible, and Women movement, together with
industrialization and urbanization, changed the social norms.
Neal Wyatt says women are forced to enter the work place with low
payment, meanwhile their income become their husbands of fathers rights. The
middle class and upper class women still ran the house as the symbol of the
success of the husbands <http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng384>.
The ideal Victorian women was “pious, pure, and above all submissive”
<http://caxton.stockton.edu/browning/stories/storyReader$3>. The components of
the Victorian lifestyle were etiquette, cleanliness, parlour, and gardening. In
marriage they were expected to play inferior part than their husbands. Husband
was the head of the family, the one who must produce money for the family.
Wives, according to Henretta, Brody, and Dumenil, must rely ‘on his ability as the
family bread-winner’ (1999:551). Women must also learn to pay special attention
to house matters; how to make home clean, comfortable, and nice. They must
learn how to behave in front of the public, including how to entertain people using
their polite and proper behavior and stylish, elegant dressing.
Marriage in the nineteenth century meant that wives should obey their
husbands, and the husbands had the legal rights to control their wives. Wives had
no right of custody of the children if they divorced. All the properties of the wives
before marriage became the husbands’ after the marriage. Wives had no right to
vote, sue or own property without their husbands’ agreement. They also became
the husbands’ ambassador in making business relation by organizing dinner and
parties with the expectation that the prestige of the husbands can be achieved
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian>.
Gilman points out in Women and Economics, as quoted by Mahin:
[regarding women] the same human energies and human desires and ambitions within. But all that she may wish to have, all that she wish to do, must come through a single channel and a single choice. Wealth, power, social distinction, fame, -not only these, but home and happiness, reputation, ease and pleasure, her bread and butter, -all, must come to her through a small gold ring <http://www.womenwriters.net/domesticgoddess/mahin.htm>.
It was said that women in the nineteenth century were so dependent to men as the
marriage was the only was for women to be financially fulfilled and happy.
Barbara Welter’s “True Cult of Womanhood” which consists of two
central tenets of The Cult of Domesticity and The Cult of Purity required women
in the nineteenth century to do the house spheres and demand them to be virtuous
and pure <http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohlpart/alra/gilman.htm>.
Magazines and religious literature in the nineteenth century published the
attributes of the true women were piety, purity, submissive, and domesticity. Piety
meant women should bring the members of the family close to God and be free
from the assault of the aggressive male. Submissive meant women should be
obedient and submissive to God, fate, and men, and take their position without
complaining. Domesticity meant the place for women was inside the house where
they took care of the family and household needs. Women needed to be domestic
because they had to provide moralistic, stabile, and peaceful environment for their
husbands after they came home from working in the cruel world
<http://www.connerpraire.org/historyonline/womrole>.
Nevertheless, it was also the beginning of the feminist movement. Women
began to fight for their rights. The review of the theories on feminism may give
some close ups. However, the action was not only political; Amelia Jenks
Bloomer tried to gain equality in fashion matter. Simpler clothing for women was
conducted to make women freer to move (Faulkner and Kepner, 1934:578).
The new concept of equality was brought to the lifestyle of women in the
nineteenth century, such as job, education, fashion, and leisure activities. When
the demand of labor increased in the nineteenth century, young women, usually
from middle and low social class, became the source of need. Women became the
essential part of America’s industry (1999:486). The most common jobs done by
women were factory work, domestic service, and teaching. They were usually
only low paying (Bailey and Kennedy, 1983:310). The low salary was the new
form of discrimination for women. As the working women were married, they
“left their paying jobs and took up their new work (without wages) as wives and
mothers” (Bailey and Kennedy, 1983:310).
On the nineteenth century, women started to fight for higher education.
Around 1820 Emma Willard opened the Troy (New York) Female Seminary in
1821, which was followed by other schools.
In marriage, important changes happened in the nineteenth century. Young
people began to choose their couple and decide the time of marriage. The parents
only took the part of giving permission. Another change was seen in the number
of women who avoided marriage. Bailey and Kennedy say, “About 10 percent of
adult women remained ‘spinsters’ at the time of the Civil War” (1983:309). The
number of children being born in the nineteenth century was also decreased by
half. It was believed that “women undoubtly played a large part-perhaps the
leading part-in decisions to have fewer children” (Bailey and Kennedy,
1983:310).
In the world of fashion, as mentioned above, the feminist Amelia Jenks
Bloomer tried to gain equality in fashion matter. Simpler clothing for women was
conducted to make women freer to move (Faulkner and Kepner, 1934:578).
The change of women’s leisure time was shown in the establishment of
magazine and newspaper for women. Godey’s Lady’s Book was the example of
women magazine found in 1830 and survived until 1898 which had countless
million of women readers. Another leisure activity was ball, a recreational media
and a good way to socialize with young people.
D. Theoretical Framework
In writing this thesis, the writer provides many reviews on Chopin’s short
stories “The Story of an Hour”, “The Storm”, “A Pair of Silk Stockings”, and
“Athénaïse” and on Kate Chopin herself. These reviews which were mainly taken
from internet were the essays written by Hans P. Guth and Gabriel L. Rico, Jonny
Goodyear, Linda J. Byrd, Martha J. Cutter, and Deter. They were used to support
the writer’s analysis.
The theories on character and characterization, plot and feminism were
used to help the writer to analyze the female characters and to see how they were
positioned and also oppressed in the society and in their family, and also to
understand how their attitude toward the oppression.
The theories on feminism were also employed to help the writer to
broaden her knowledge in answering problem formulation number two and three.
To understand how the female characters were oppressed and how they reacted
toward the oppression, the theories are needed to guide the writer.
Some theories on feminist attitude are employed to support and answer the
last problem above. In addition, the review on the social condition in the
nineteenth century in America especially the convention of marriage and
womanhood is gathered to give an input of how women were in the society and in
the marriage life at the nineteenth century. This information was important to give
a picture and to prove of how women, as these female characters also, were
positioned inferior in their families and in the society.
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
The objects of this study are Kate Chopin’s short stories “The Story of an
Hour”, “The Storm”, “A Pair of Silk Stockings”, and “Athénaïse”. They are taken
separately from four sources. The first short story, “The Story of an Hour”, is
taken from Hans P. Guth and Gabriele’s L. Rico Discovering Literature, printed
by Prentice-Hall Inc in 1997 at New Jersey. The second short story, “The Storm”,
is taken from X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia’s Literature: An Introduction to
Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, printed in London by Longman. The third short story, “A Pair of Silk Stockings” is taken from internet
(http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/860). This website is updated last on
March 28, 2005. The last short story “Athénaïse” is taken from Kate Chopin’s A
Night in Acadie, reprinted electronically in 1997 by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hills (http://docsouth.unc.edu/chopinnight.html). This website
was reprinted from the book published by Way and Williams in Chicago
copyrighted in 1897. This website is last updated on March 28, 2005.
“The Story of an Hour” is a short story which tells the tragic death of Mrs.
Mallard, the wife of a salesman, Brently Mallard. When her husband was
informed death in an accident by a newspaper office, Mr. Mallard’s friend
Richard and Mrs. Mallard’s sister Josephine came to break the news as gentle as
possible because of Mrs. Mallard’s heart disease. A little shock could kill her. She
wept as the news was told and then asked to be left alone in her bedroom. When
she had her time to herself, a bewilded thought came to her, the thought of having
her life for her own. Overjoyed for the freedom she was going to have, she went
out of the bedroom with her sister who worried about her. However at the same
time, her husband went home safely. Before Richard could hide his presence from
Mrs. Mallard’s sight, she was killed of heart disease, of joy that kills.
“The Storm” is a story of an affair of Calixta, a wife and mother of Bibinot
and Bibi. When her husband and son were trapped outside the house by a storm,
she was being visited by her old lover, Alcee Laballiere, who was searching a
place for shelter. The memories of their romance before she got married to
Bibinot brought them to a sexual relationship. As the storm was over, they were
departed and lived their usual lives. She welcomed her husband and son who
came home safely with supper as if nothing happened, while her affair, Alcee,
wrote her wife a letter to tell her not to hurry home from her vacation. The storm
passes and everyone was happy.
“A Pair of Silk Stockings” tells about Mrs. Sommers who found a bill of
fifteen dollars. She first planned to use the money on buying the needs of her
children. As a mother, she has accustomed herself to put her children’s needs
above her own. However, as her hands touched the pile of silk stockings and put
them on, she freed her mind from thinking about her responsibilities toward her
children. One act continued to another, she spent all the money for her pleasure.
She took a lunch in an expensive restaurant and bought a fashion magazine for
herself before she went to the theatre. When the play was over, she took a cable
car on her way home. However her mind had the desperate wish that the cable car
would never stop, but went on and on with her forever.
The last short story, “Athénaïse”, is a long short story about Athénaïse
who escaped from her marriage to New Orleans, a rest house recommended by
her brother Monteclin. Her husband did not abuse her nor cause any harm, but it
was the marriage and the expectation of the marriage which caused her to run
away. Her husband was indeed very much in love with her and would do any
thing to make her happy and comfortable. She had planned her future by
sacrificing her comfort by being independent and poor. She made herself one or
two inexpensive gown and look about for suitable and agreeable employment. Her
friendship with Gouvernail, a company she met in the rest house, seemed to firm
her decision to stay. However after four weeks of searching and planning, she
went home after knowing her pregnancy.
B. Approach of the Study
In analyzing this thesis, the writer used feminist approach. It is the most
appropriate one since the writer wants to focus on the woman issues reflected
through the story that show women oppression because of their sexes and the
labor they have to do in doing their household tasks and their responsibilities as a
mother.
Feminism is an approach which concern on women and their position, as
Wilfred Guerin et.al. in A Handbook of Critical Approach to Literature stated:
Unlike the other approach, feminist literary criticism is often a practical attack upon other modes of criticism and theory, and its social orientation moves beyond traditional literary criticism. In its diversity feminism is concerned with the marginalization of all women; that is with their being relegated to a secondary position (1999:196).
Based on the quotation above, feminism focuses on the condition of
women’s everyday difference from men in the street and in the home. Those
movements reflected the four ideas of feminism, the equality between men and
women, women’s liberty, women’s right to be their selves and women’s
opportunity of job.
According to Ben Belawa and Willem Raring, feminism is also a social
reconstruction, created to fight feminine construction conducted by men
(2002:49). Their opinion is that patriarchal domination had caused a tendency in
man to make a negative construction about woman. Besides, the unfair feminine
construction was continually developed in order to legitimate the superiority of
man. Thus, feminism became an important issue because it was precisely
reconstructive movement toward the feminine construction created by men.
In Thinking about Women: Sociological Perspective on Sex and Gender,
Andersen says, “the goal of feminism is equality – the construction of a social
world where all people can exercise individual freedom” (1997:323).
The feminist approach guides the study to find that literature can be
functional as determines gender, some feminists stress gender differences, others
believe that entire concept of female difference is what has caused female
oppression (Guerin, 1999:200). The use of this approach is to understand the short
stories and the message especially the women oppression in marriage and society.
Through the application of this feminist approach, it can be analyzed the female
characters in Chopin’s short stories were oppressed in their families and in the
society, and how their attitude toward the oppression. These are the reasons to use
feminist approach as it fits in analyzing the stories.
C. Method of the Study
The method used in this study was library research. There were two kinds
of data used; they were primary and secondary sources. The primary sources were
Kate Chopin’s short stories “The Story of an Hour”, “The Storm”, “A Pair of Silk
Stockings”, and “Athénaïse”. The secondary sources were some sources that were
related to the research problems, such as some analysis done by previous
researchers on the short stories and on the author, theories on character and
characterization, theories on plot and symbol, as well as theories on Feminism.
There were some steps that the writer did in discussing the topic. The first
step was to read the short stories. The second step was to read some books on
feminism such as Bressler’s Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and
Practice, de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, Fairchild’s The Way of the Women, Fakih’s Analisis Gender dan Transformasi Sosial, Freeman’s Women: A Feminist
Perspective, Humm’s Feminisms: A Reader, and Montagu’s The Natural Superiority of Women.
Realizing that the writer needed guidance in analyzing her topic, she
collected some previous analysis on Chopin and Chopin’s short stories, together
with the preview of the social condition in the nineteenth century in America. This
effort was done in order to not misinterpret the stories. Next, the writer also
collected the theories on character and characterization, plot and symbol.
The fifth step was to process all the data and arrange the problem
formulation. The next step was to reread the short stories and to apply the theories
on character and characterization, plot and symbol to see how the female
characters were positioned and oppressed in their families and in the society and
how their attitude toward the oppression. The last step was to draw conclusion to
the analysis that the study of Chopin’s short stories was a study about feminism.
CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS
In this chapter, the analysis is given. It contains three subchapters; they are
how the female characters in Kate Chopin’s short stories are positioned in family
life and society, how they are oppressed in their families and society, and how
their attitudes are toward the oppression. These subchapters are to answer the
three problems above.
A. The Position of the Female Characters in Kate Chopin’s Short Stories “The Story of an Hour”, “The Storm”, “A Pair of Silk Stockings”, and “Athénaïse” in Their Families and Society
In this part, the female characters in the short stories were identified. They
were observed through their positions in their families and society. The writer saw
this through the characterization of the characters by the author Kate Chopin and
the plots of each short story. The female characters to discussed and analyzed
were Mrs. Mallard, Calixta, Mrs. Sommers, and Athénaïse. Every of them was the
female protagonist of the short stories. The characteristics of their characters were
analyzed from their thoughts, their behavior, their action, the conversation and the
direct comments of the author.
1. Mrs. Mallard in “The Story of an Hour”
Kate Chopin started her short story “The Story of an Hour” by:
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.
The first paragraph of the story has given such an expression of how weak and
vulnerable the main character, Mrs. Mallard, was. The words such as ‘a heart
trouble’ and ‘gently’ emphasized the idea. Mrs. Mallard was the wife of Brently
Mallard who was informed killed in a railroad accident by a newspaper office.
Because of the heart disease she had, Richard, her husband’s friend who firstly
noticed the news and confirmed the news to the newspaper office, and Josephine,
her sister, had to deliver the news as gentle as possible that her health would not
be harmed. Mrs. Mallard was positioned as a weak woman early in the beginning
of the story.
The story also then characterized her to be emotionally unstable or fragile.
After the news was delivered, she did not react the same ways as any woman
would react. It was said that she immediately cried with wild abandonment on her
sister’s arm without knowing the significance of the news. She cried and sobbed
like a child.
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 shock her, as a child who has cried herself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
Mrs. Mallard was, in the society, positioned as weak and fragile. She was also
dependent to her husband as he was the provider of the family. She was
economically dependent to her husband.
In her family, Mrs. Mallard was positioned to be a submissive wife. She
was obedient to her husband, as any woman in the nineteenth century might be.
The review on social condition in the nineteenth century stated in chapter two
might give a clear picture. Mrs. Mallard was religious, obedient and submissive to
God, fate, and her husband. She also took her position without complaining. She
