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The Awakening, published in 1899, is one of Kate Chopin’s most famous literary works and explores themes similar to the ones she highlights in “The Story of an Hour.” The novel’s protagonist, Edna Pontellier, experiences an epiphany regarding her role as a housewife and begins to explore the possibilities that exist for her outside the confines of traditional womanhood. In a way, Edna has the opportunity to experience some of the freedoms that Louise Mallard dreams of. Like “The Story of an Hour,” readers initially criticized The Awakening for its rejection of gender norms and open discussions of female sexuality, but critics today hail it as a classic example of feminist literature.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” has many thematic similarities to “The Story of an Hour.” Published in 1892, this text follows an unnamed narrator who goes mad as a result of her husband’s insistence on using the rest cure to treat her postpartum depression. As her mental state declines, however, the narrator begins to see a trapped woman in the design of the wallpaper and becomes increasingly aware of the oppression inherent in her own marriage. Louise and the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” both ultimately suffer under the well-meaning care of their husbands.
A key work of the Victorian Era, British author George Eliot’s 1872 novel Middlemarch features a number of ill-suited marriages and emphasizes the strain that two partners can have on each other. Louise touches on this concept in “The Story of an Hour” when she describes the “blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature.” Although Eliot’s novel is not as explicitly feminist as Chopin’s story, her depiction of strained relationships and her refusal to end the narrative happily reflect a commitment to challenging her era’s expectations for women.
Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen explores the dissatisfaction of a traditional housewife, Nora Helmer, and her eventual choice to leave her husband in his three-act play, A Doll’s House. First performed in Copenhagen in 1879, this play has become famous for the way it depicts women’s lack of opportunities outside the home and offers its protagonist the agency to escape oppression. “The Story of an Hour” features similar themes, although Chopin imagines a darker ending for her protagonist.
