The Role of Identity in the Story of the Hour by Kate Chopin - Essay Example

23 June Identity in Chopin’s Story of An Hour The Story of an Hour depicts the gender conditions of women during Kate Chopin’s time. Mrs. Mallard just receives news that her husband is dead and she weeps over her loss. Inside her room, however, something beckons her. It is the sweet call of freedom that is embodied in various symbolisms of autonomy and hope. To respond to these delicious images of freedom, Mrs. Mallard forms a new identity in the span of an hour, an identity she can call her own. Unfortunately, this identity, as swiftly as it is made, is threatened by immediate figurative death, as Mrs. Mallard sees her husband is alive after all. This paper analyzes identity formation and gender identity in the Story of an Hour. It is a story revolving around the themes of marriage and bondage. The story demonstrates that a wife’s identity is no identity at all, because it is defined by her gender and status beneath her husband, and wives like Mrs. Mallard would rather choose death over the life of “becoming” a woman in a man’s world. A wife’s identity is no identity at all, because it is a product of gender roles and expectations. All Mrs. Mallard’s life, she is Mrs. Mallard, and this is not an identity she can call her own. As a protagonist, she does not even have a specific name in the beginning of the story. She is only Mrs. Mallard, defined by her relation to her gender and husband. Her real name, Louise, is revealed only at the end of the story, when her sister worries about her bereavement in her room and asks her to open the door. But it can be analyzed that even Louise comes from the word Louie. She remains a product of her gender, a woman who is meant to do housework all her life and be a servant to men and her family. Being a woman during these times means a world of “repetition” of servitude. The feminist Simone de Beauvoir condemns domestic housework in The Second Sex, where she illustrates it as useless repetition due to repetitive manual actions: Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day. The housewife wears herself out marking time: she makes nothing, simply perpetuates the present. (qtd. in Deutscher 328). Mrs. Mallard also knows this for a fact, which is why when she learns that she is free, she knows that the days of repetitive domestic tasks are gone forever. In her mind, she sees images of different seasons, all spent for herself: “Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own” (Chopin). When someone dreams of days becoming her own, one would feel that depth of servitude it must be to be a woman. And so in a span of an hour, Mrs. Mallard transforms into Louise, the free woman. She is her own woman, and she no longer has to be the wife of someone else. This idea of becoming a woman in her own terms can be gleaned from the symbols of empowerment in the story, such as songs and birds: “The notes of a distant song which someone was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves” (Chopin). The song represents the song of freedom from bondage, while the sparrows are symbols of freedom and autonomy. Louise can flutter using her wings, and finally, fly away from being a traditional woman. Being a wife kills self-identity, since it is only defined by the social identity of being a wife, a slave of a husband. A social identity is “that part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from his [sic] knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups)” and the importance placed on that membership (Tajfel 255 qtd. in Sacharin, Lee, and Gonzalez 275). But as a wife, Mrs. Mallard finds no importance in that membership. Essentially, she does not even love her husband: “And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter!” (Chopin). She does not even love this man she calls her husband, but she has to stick with him, since they are married. Indeed, who would love to be a wife, when it means a life of bondage? Marriage is bondage, because the setting shows that Mrs. Mallard only works in one space after being married- her house. Marriage is a confinement, a structure if power play: “Characters will lock up others so that, by establishing tight boundaries, the one confined is under control” (Crouse 179). Housewives have grueling nights and days of work, work, and work inside and around the captivity of their homes. Thompson and Walker (1995) note from their study that wives perform two to three times “more family work than do husbands” (qtd. in Kulik 300). Husbands may find such an arrangement quite normal, nevertheless, which entrenches gender roles and expectations in marriage. But Louise will no longer have any of that. The atmosphere of the story has changed significantly, after she realizes that she is free, where birds are singing and the sky is clearing. This is her own climax of her life: “She said it over and over under her breath: ‘free, free, free!’ (Chopin). Louise is free to be person of her own, because she is free from being a wife. To have an identity that one can own is precious to normal living, and when Louise discovers that she will no longer have an autonomous identity, she chooses death. Being a wife, as the story shows, contradicts the self-identity that promotes psychological well-being, where: “Psychological well-being includes feeling good about one’s self and one’s life, the sense that one is continuing to grow and develop as a person, the belief that life has meaning and purpose…” (Saunders and Kashubeck-West 199). Mrs. Mallard does not feel good about her “self” and her life as a wife. As a wife, she is a woman of her husband. She cannot grow and develop as a person. As a result, she will find no meaning and purpose in her life, as a wife. Indeed, as a wife, there is no self-determination, only a gentler form of slavery. But as a single woman once more, she can determine her own identity, because she can directly manage her own affairs: “But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely” (Chopin). She will no longer have to follow society’s demands that she should be a loyal and serving wife: “There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature” (Chopin). Louise has opened a new phase in her identity formation; she is running toward a feminist self that is no longer socially constructed, but individually made: “Feminist theoretical studies have highlighted how gender, as a normative construct, socially and culturally instituted, shapes the mind according to the universal principle of gender polarity” (Pedroni). But when the threat of gender polarity returns, Louise knows that there is no other course but death. After tasting freedom and the autonomy to form her own identity, she would no longer lose that, for she will again lose her “self.” The Story of an Hour depicts the themes of marriage and bondage. Marriage is an informal form of slavery, where confinement to the house is ordinary. This story shows that a wife’s identity is no identity at all, because gender and marriage undermines the capability and autonomy toward the road of self-identity. Louise experienced precious minutes of a feminist self. She can now determine who she is and who she wants to be by owning the remaining days of her life. The idea of self-identity, once crushed, however, is not worth surrendering. Louise chooses to freeze that hour of autonomy and freedom, by dying in the bliss of her dreams and hopes. Works Cited Chopin, Kate. “Story of an Hour.” 1894. Web. 21 June 2011 . Crouse, Jamie S. “’This Shattered Prison’: Confinement, Control And Gender in Wuthering Heights. Bronte Studies 33.3 (2008): 179-191. Print. Deutscher, Penelope. “Repetition Facility: Beauvoir on Women's Time.” Australian Feminist Studies 21.51 (2006): 327-342. Print. Kulik, Liat. “The Impact of Family Status on Gender Identity and on Sex-Typing of Household Tasks in Israel.” Journal of Social Psychology 145.3 (2005): 299-316. Print. Pedroni, Ingrid. “From Gender Identity to Subjectivity: Relational Textures in the Marital and in the Analytic Couple.” Studies in Gender & Sexuality 10.1 (2009): 33-46. Print. Sacharin, Vera, Lee, Fiona, and Richard Gonzalez. “Identities in Harmony: Gender–Work Identity Integration Moderates Frame Switching In Cognitive Processing.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 33.3 (2009): 275-284. Print. Saunders, Kendra J. and Susan Kashubeck-West. “The Relations among Feminist Identity Development, Gender-Role Orientation, and Psychological Well-Being in Women.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 30.2 (2006): 199-211. Print. Read More