Divorce In Kate Chopin's 'The Story Of An Hour'

For centuries, marriage has played an instrumental role in society, providing a seemingly secure foundation upon which to build a family and creating innumerable alliances. Historically, marriage was a loveless institution in which women had little or no say in who they married and the primary purposes were to procure land, preserve power, and produce legitimate heirs. Only recently did the practice of marriage transition toward focuses on love, monogamy, and happiness. However, not all marriages result in two intertwined lives brimming with love and happiness; many are tainted with the pain of constant bickering, despotic constriction, infidelity, or even abuse. The obvious response to such unjust treatment should be divorce, but unfortunately, …show more content…
Chopin, famous for her insightful feminist short stories, was widowed after twelve years of marriage, while Glaspell was widowed after eleven years of marriage. Glaspell, however, was most profoundly influenced by a story she had to cover during her years of journalism in which a woman murdered her abusive husband. The events that influenced Chopin and Glaspell stimulated them to write incredible stories that often focused on the unshared aspects of marriage that were common during the era. Chopin’s “The Story of An Hour” narrates the unusual reaction of a woman who is told she has been widowed, and Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” tells of a search for clues regarding a crime that involves a woman being accused of murdering her husband in his sleep. Through their masterfully crafted, fictionalized “The Story of An Hour” and “A Jury of Her Peers,” Chopin and Glaspell successfully convey the bitter realities of marriage and divorce existing around the turn of the nineteenth century. As both stories begin with or conclude with a husband or wife’s death, much is implied about the extremity necessary to end miserable marriages during this time