Chopin support for thesis

Thesis #2: By contrasting images of life with those of death throughout “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin highlights the struggle of a person imprisoned by societal pressures and thereby kept from fully being alive.

In the thirteenth paragraph the narrator shows the reader how Mrs. Mallard briefly struggles with the reality of her husband’s death and how his death has freed her from imprisonment. “She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked saved with love upon here, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and speared her arms out to them in welcome.” Another statement the narrator makes about Mrs. Mallard’s freedom and how her own will was controlled when her husband was alive is in paragraph fourteen. “There would be no one to live for her during those coming years, she would live for herself. 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. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illuminations.”



Thesis #3: Through the use of structure in her intentionally short story “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin ingeniously exposes the larger and more complex problem of oppression that can still be felt in our society today.

It is evident that even in today’s modern society, the complex issues of oppression still remains. Oppression is more commonly known today as abuse. This is such a major issue that there are organizations like W.E.A.V.E that help women escape from such situations and there are new cases reported everyday of domestic violence. This shows that issues like this between couples has not changed since Mrs. Mallard’s time, but may have gotten worse. The narrator portrays Mrs. Mallard’s oppression and her freedom from it in paragraph nineteen. “Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that her life might be long.”

Comments--Your support for Thesis #2 is pretty solid, but be sure you link the examples more directly to the purpose noted in the thesis. Your support for Thesis #3 does not relate to the literary element of structure. Also, to tie it in to issues in modern times, you would need to focus on what in the text resonates with today's issues and not the other way around. Otherwise, nice job culling the text for evidence--just be very certain to maintain a focus on the elements you mention in your thesis and more directly link your evidence to the meaning you interpret and state in the thesis.