The Story of an Hour Essay & Criticism

The Story of an Hour Critical Overview

A popular writer during her lifetime, Chopin is best known today for her psychological novel The Awakening. Chopin's depiction of female self-assertion was regarded as immoral. When Chopin submitted "The Story of an Hour" to Century magazine, it was rejected. After Chopin's collection of short stories, Bayou Folk garnered critical acclaim, Vogue published the story. According to Barbara C. Ewell in her book, Kate Chopin, the editor of Century, R. W. Gilder, rejected the manuscript because of its feminist message. The magazine had been publishing anti-suffragist articles during this period and upheld a vision of women as selfless wives and mothers.

Since the 1960s, with the rise of the feminist movement, Chopin's fiction, including "The Story of an Hour," has been rediscovered and is now acclaimed for precisely the reasons it was denounced during her lifetime. Per Seyersted, in Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography, extols the story's "theme of...
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