Gender inequalities have been highly controversial for centuries and still are today. In "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin, Louise Mallard challenges these inequalities. She goes against what is considered the cultural norms of a married woman in the 1890s which were to be a wife above all. During this time women were treated as second class citizens. During this era the cultural norms of the United States were much different than they are today for the role of the woman and the man. Louise is introduced in the story as a wife with heart trouble; who, when informing her of her husband's recent death, has to be spoken to with great compassion in order to avoid heart complications. Women in the 1890s were restricted to one man in their lifetime, which meant that Louise would now be a widow for the remainder of her life. Sondra Herman's journal "Loving Courtship or the Marriage Market? The Ideal and Its Critics 1871-1911", debates the idea behind marriage in the 1890s and the restrictions it places on women such as they had to love one man exclusively even if he didn't just love her and the women was no longer free to live how she wanted; instead she lived for her husband. It debated whether marriage was for love or for arrangement and convenience. In Kate Chopin's, "The Story of an Hour", Chopin utilizes the deaths of an oppressive husband and oppressed wife through the wife's imagination of her new freedom in life, to show the significance of gender inequalities such as limits on the education women could get and what they were expected to do such as clean the house and cook the food.

In the text, Louise is initially introduced as an ordinary women in the 1890s however as the story goes along, this is not true. Mrs. Mallard is fully aware of the 'correct' way to act as a wife; however, when she is alone, she disobeys her societal standards in her thoughts as she " breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday that she had thought with a shudder that life might be long " (Chopin 224). Women in this time were meant to cook, clean, and take care of the house and children if the husband wanted them. They were also expected to be loyal to their husbands, despite their husband's devotion. Louise was not hopeful for her long life with her husband. In the late nineteenth century when this piece was written, women in the United States were going through what is now known as first wave feminism. She challenged the social norms through her stories and the characters that are in it. Louise's reaction to her husband's death is Chopin's way of challenging these social norms. In her room she opens her window and does not feel sadness, she instead felt she would "weep again" when "the tender hands folded in death" (Chopin 224). While she was sitting in her bedroom she did not feel sad or grief from her husband's death which are two emotions that come to mind when talking about a dead relative. She knew that once she was at his funeral and she saw his hands folded in his coffin that she would cry but for right now she did not feel sadness. This is because she was not happy when she was with him. Critics find that "male domination, female uselessness, and economic dependency had distorted marital happiness" (Herman 235). While in her room the only thing that she considers missing about her husband is his hands, proving the lack of actual love in the marriage. During this time there was a large debate over marital status in the United States. As the feminist movement grew, "more women were going to work; more were seeking a college education" and in some states women were given the right to vote (Herman 235). During this time however, the woman in the household was treated the same. Women were also expected to be even tempered, well mannered, and well behaved. While Louise was in front of others, she fulfilled the societal standards of the culture, like the ones listed above. However, after hearing the news of the death of her husband she retreats to her bedroom. At that moment in her room, she felt unoppressed and "free" and "opened and spread her arms out" in welcome (Chopin 223). Louise realized that she was no longer under oppression from her husband. She knew that when she saw her husband at the funeral that she would become very sad and during the rest of her lifetime she would miss his kind and gentle hands, but for right now she did not feel that way. For right now she was focused on the future and her life as a widow. She realizes that she is now unoppressed by her husband and she could now do as she pleased. She was, for the first time, living for herself and did not feel the restrictions of the societal standards; thus she did not have to live her life for anybody else. She no longer had to cook or clean for her husband. She could disobey certain societal standards like she could educate herself now. It was as if her husband was the police enforcing society's laws and now the police were no longer in existence and she didn't have to follow any laws in her home. She was joyful that she was now alone and ironically her heart problems seemed to subside when, "her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body" (Chopin 224). Chopin used the words warmed and relaxed because it portrays a peaceful connotation in the readers mind. It is significant that once her husband was no longer involved with her life, and when the stress of obeying the laws of humanity were released, she no longer suffered heart issues. For the first time in her marriage, she was finally free from the emotional hold that her husband had on her. Her heart troubles subside, she seems content with herself, and she does not have to obey the laws of being a wife any longer while she was at home.

 Irony strikes once more in the story when at the end of the novel she collapses when her husband enters the house. Chopin utilizes the ideas of domesticity and submissiveness when speaking of courtship. Chopin's example of submissiveness is when the paramedics announce that she died of joy; however, it is clear that she died of the sudden realization that her new life of being free was being stripped from her. She had, in her mind, already moved on to a life of solidarity in her home and with the sudden realization that this would not be true she panics and her weak heart fails. In our culture marriage has evolved into a status of mutual and eternal love for one another. During this time, Chopin saw marriage as a restriction on women, or as Herman states, an evaluation of "social order" (Herman 236) She saw unfairness in the society she lived in, in favor of the man. As Her stories are responses to the ideology of the time. Her freedom, and rights were short lived, and she knows that now she will have to spend her life oppressed and abiding by the cultural stereotype of a normal woman now. Louise realizes, her marriage, was one filled with rules, and as Herman states in her journal, marriages of the 1890's were more for "convenience" not for love (Herman 236).   The life that she was living out in her head was killed, so she as well was killed.  

When assessing the text, the reader can see that Chopin was highly influenced by the society around her. "The Story of an Hour" is a response to the time period that she was writing in and her frustrations as a feminist. She wrote this story and developed her characters around first wave feminism and gender inequality in marriage. The death of her husband is significant because it showed the difference that Chopin saw in her society between married women and widowed women in the 1890s. The death of Louise was also significant because of the irony that was present in the paramedic's cause of death. Through reading Herman's journal we see that the time period that "The Story of An Hour" was wrote in and the society that Chopin wrote in were very similar.

