Self at the Cost of Life: A Comparative Study of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and “The Story of an Hour”

Abstract

Both the protagonists, Edna in The Awakening and Louise Mallard in “The Story of an Hour” undergo the psychological process of awareness. Once Edna drinks the bliss of life with her free self, she comes to realize the imprisoned state of her self. Slowly and gradually she begins to identify yoke of patriarchy to be the underlying force working behind this. As she senses this force to be detrimental for the autonomy of her self, she submits herself to the vast sea for she could not imagine throwing herself back to the old version of life. Louise Mallard gets awakened after she hears about the news of her husband’s death. Her submissive self, which was being governed by the patriarchal mode of society, seeks the outlet for autonomous identity. Hence she begins to nurture the dream for the kind of life which was unimaginable in the contemporary society by then. But the sudden twist comes up as the person who met an accident was other than her husband. Hence, she is bound to have heart attack at the sight of her husband, who comes back again, even before she could sense the panic cry of her self