Showcasing Reality beyond Social Expectations in Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour”
In today's society, we are expected to behave a certain way. When someone dies, we expect them to grieve. When someone is wealthy, we expect them to hold themselves a certain way. Many people feel pressured to behave and look a way that is considered socially acceptable. Both Kate Chopin and Henry James reveal through their stories "The Real Thing" and "Story of an Hour" that this pressure to conform to society's behavioral expectations is unjust and does not always reflect reality.
In Kate Chopin's Story of an Hour, everyone expected Mrs. Mallard to grieve after her husband's death. However, she felt a sense of freedom. "Free, free, free!... Free! Body and soul free!"(Chopin 244). This was something that nobody would ever expect, especially from a young widow. Chopin used this irony to develop Mrs. Mallard's true emotions of relief and freedom. What made this moment so ironic was the fact that what the reader expected to happen vastly differed from what actually occurred. This, however, occurs in the real world as well. People react to situations in different ways. When people react in an unorthodox manner, we see it as negative because it's different. This is why realism is so prevalent in today's society. Even though these stories were written over a century ago, we can still relate to them in our everyday lives. This story demonstrates that although society expects people to behave in a certain way, this does not always reflect reality.
Henry James also used irony in "The Real Thing" in order to show that even though one who is wealthy is expected to hold themselves a certain way, it doesn't necessarily mean that they always do. In "The Real Thing", the Monarchs, who are aspiring to be models, are in a higher social class than the models that this artist usually uses for his work(Miss Churm and Oronte). Although the Monarchs are wealthier, they didn't hold themselves the way that one normally would. The narrator stated in the beginning of the story that the lady Monarch did not have what it would take in order to be a model. "A glance at the lady helped to remind me of this paradoxical law: she also looked too distinguished to be a "personality"(James 653).
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The artist actually preferred the other models because they were more fluid and they were easier to work with. These models were able to convey this reality that the Monarchs simply were not able to. This reveals how as a society, we expect the rich to act rich and the poor to act poor. In "The Real Thing", the poor is acting more rich than the rich people themselves. This also tells us that artists don't necessarily prefer to showcase real people, but rather real emotions. We as people let our actions speak louder than our words. How we hold ourselves is how other people perceive us.
One idea mentioned in a literary criticism by a student at Brigham Young University is that the artist didn't prefer Miss Churm and Oronte over the Monarchs just because of how talented they were, but rather that they were just easier to work with. The monarchs actually helped the artist realize his flaw as an artist. He couldn't seem to handle the emotion and was confused on what to do with it. An excerpt from this criticism by a student at Brigham Young University states that "their clumsy dignity, their essential innocence, their odd misfortune--all affect the artist deeply" (Real Thing in the Real Thing).
He realized that he was unable to take the real thing and make it art. He was used to constructing what seems to be real but actually is not, and then making it seem real. While this is another form of art, it's not what would seem "right" in today's society. However, if we think about it, advertisements in magazines portray unrealistic elements and standards for mostly adolescent teenagers, making them aspire to be these tall and thin models that were actually heavily photoshopped. This is the kind of message that Henry James was trying to reveal.
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Showcasing Reality beyond Social Expectations in Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour”. (2023, May 30). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/showcasing-reality-beyond-social-expectations-in-kate-chopins-story-of-an-hour/
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