Kate Chopin

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Kate Chopin

• Womens Activist
• The Story of an Hour

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Troubled life

• Husband died young, leaving her to raise 6
  children on her own
• Ran plantation by herself for many years, then
  sold out and moved in with her mother
• When her mother died a few years later, she fell
  into a deep depression.
• Encouraged by her family doctor, she began to
  write as a way to encourage better emotional
  health

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Scandal

• The Awakening (1899)a psychological account of a
  womans search for independence and fulfillment.
  Because the novel explored the issue of
  infidelity, it aroused a storm of protest.
• severely attacked by critics and eventually
  banned.
• Resurrected in the 1950s (2nd wave of feminism)
• Today, the book is among the five most-read
  American novels in colleges and universities.

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The Story of an Hour

• Story connotations?
• Hour time frame/setting
• Phonetically hour/our connotations?

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Conflict

• Protagonist vs. self
• Internal
• Conscience and dealing with her husbands death

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Diction and Word Choice

• Double meaning heart trouble physical
  ailment and trouble in her relationship
• Par. 5 twittering aquiver with life
  Delicious breath crying (double meaning) his
  wares all add to the tone. Not sadness as you
  would expect, but expectant, ironic, and even
  giddy
• Par. 11 she feels free not hemmed inkeen and
  bright almost vibrant
• Par. 12 Monstrous Joy bigger than life, makes
  you wonder what made her life so terrible in the
  first place.

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Irony

• Situational Irony
• Mrs. Mallards reaction to her husbands death
• Verbal Irony
• of joy that kills
• Dramatic Irony
• Mrs. Mallards cause of death
• Climax
• Mr. Mallards returnirony?

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Symbolism

• weather and season springlife but the story is
  about death (irony)
• briefcasegripsack gripping on to the wife and
  not letting go
• going up shes feeling heavy with guilt, coming
  down she feels lighter as if shes leaving things
  behind

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Theme

• The wrongfulness and weakening power that emerges
  with the repression of women (or any group) and
  how wrong and damaging it can be.

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When you are done you should have

• 1-4 7 9-14 done for your poop sheet