ShmoopTube

00:02

Kate Chopin.....

00:15

Nothing beat a dip in the Mississippi river on summer afternoons in st. Louis....

00:20

we're hanging out in the gateway city today to talk [Statue of liberty in Mississippi river]

00:23

about one of its most loved and hotly debated authors Kate Chopin you know I'm

00:28

not one to shy away from a little controversy, that's why you love me

00:32

foreign Katherine O'Flaherty, Chopin was born in st. Louie in 1850 a time when [Kate Choplin as a baby in a crib]

00:38

slavery was becoming more of a hot-button topic roughly 23 million

00:42

people lived in America and women were expected to have 18 children net 7 after

00:48

smallpox outbreaks get their own TLC show and be happy for this lot in life young [Women with lots of kids being filmed]

00:54

Kate was raised primarily by women which undoubtedly shaped her beliefs and

00:58

feelings about a woman's role in the world

01:00

she suffered much loss as a young woman her father great-grandmother and brother

01:05

all died before Kate was finished with primary school..This too had an effect on

01:09

her writing and was often a topic that she examined, Kate married when she was

01:13

20 years old moved to New Orleans and bopped around the state of Louisiana

01:17

which was a setting for much of her writing she had six kids in eight years

01:21

and became a widow at the age of 32 talk about a whirlwind she never [Kate with husband and husband collapses]

01:26

remarried and started really focusing on her writing after her husband passed

01:29

kate returned to St. Louis where she spent the remainder of her life being a

01:33

mother contemplating a woman's place in society in the home and writing all

01:37

about these things. Kate kicked the bucket at the age of 54 doctors

01:42

concluded that she had a cerebral hemorrhage a type of stroke mercifully [Hemorrhage flashing in the brain]

01:46

she didn't also have to suffer from cerebral hemorrhoids which is even worse

01:49

in her lifetime Kate wrote two novels and literally hundreds of short stories

01:54

she had quite a bit of commercial success in her lifetime but as is so

01:58

often the case with great writers wasn't really talked about until several

02:02

decades after her death, Chopin's writing is considered a big deal for many folks

02:06

because she focused on women's issues and offered suggestions for

02:10

women could live outside the societal norms at the turn of the 20th century

02:14

along with her contemporary and perhaps better known author Virginia Woolf

02:18

Chopin is credited for being an early American feminist author her most famous

02:23

work The Awakening, tells the tale of a stifled and controlled wife having an [A wife in bed alone]

02:28

awakening which resulted in sexual liberation and personal freedom no

02:31

wonder that critics hated it The Awakening was early deemed vulgar

02:35

trite and sordid by literary critics and even by fellow female author Willa

02:41

Cather now that's not very nice, still the same themes and ideas presented in

02:47

the awakening show up time and again in Chopin's short stories clearly she was

02:51

expressing her opinions on the state of women in the world as she knew it we're [Statue of Liberty discussing Chopin's stories]

02:55

going to read one of these repulsive tales called the story of an hour ready

02:59

and go..... back to really get into the heart of this story and understand what [Heart rate monitor]

03:06

Chopin was trying to convey we're going to use a bunch of literary devices to

03:10

break it all down, let's start with symbolism and imagery if you had to pick

03:15

the most popular and possibly overused symbol there is what would you say it was...

03:18

an eagle, a clock, a heart all three of these images show up and over again [Eagle, clock and heart all appear on books]

03:25

in literature poetry and in the real world around us but the heart is

03:29

probably the most recognized symbol of them all writers use this symbol when

03:34

they're talking about feelings primarily big heavy feelings like love ,heartbreak,[Feelings fall on a weighing scale]

03:38

and sadness resulting from loss it can be shown an imagery of a beating heart

03:42

or weeping heart, or a breaking heart Chipon wasn't above using the heart as

03:47

an image in the story of an hour and it's a good one the story opens up with

03:51

a reference to the heart knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart [Passage of Chipon's story appears]

03:55

trouble great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of

04:00

her husband's death we know right away that this symbol is going to be a

04:03

crucial part of the story..Chopin idn't just mean that Mrs. Mallard literally

04:09

had issues with her heart she symbolized the Mallard marriage problems by

04:13

focusing on this prominent image the symbol physically reappears in the final [Love heart appears]

04:18

line of the story when the doctors came they

04:20

said that she had died of heart disease of the joy that kills looks like ol lady

04:26

mallards heart had it in for her all along by this point in the story though

04:30

we know that it wasn't a bad heart that killed Mrs. Mallard it was more like a

04:34

troubled heart a second prominent image and theme in this story is death [Death appears in graveyard]

04:39

once again we're given the image of death in both the first and final lines

04:42

of the story it's connected to the heart but it stands on its own two feet as

04:46

well after learning the news of her husband's death Mrs. Mallard retreats to [Mrs Mallard walks into her bedroom]

04:51

her own thoughts to ponder what's next she's struggling to cope with terrible

04:55

and unexpected news but fairly quickly comes to the conclusion that his death

04:59

is actually going to be liberating for her it's like she didn't even know how [Mrs Mallard smiling as fireworks go off behind her]

05:04

bad things were until she was given a light at the end of the tunnel or a

05:07

death at the end of her marriage either way when Mrs. Mallard learns that her

05:12

husband actually wasn't taken by death the news triggers her own demise...It

05:16

seems that at least one of the mallards was destined to die on this day well [Mrs Mallard heart appears and falls down]

05:21

played death... The final symbol in this story is time think about the title the

05:26

story of an hour right away Chopin wanted the readers to be focused on the

05:30

concept of time..Chipon connects the title with the actual amount of time [Chipon draws line from title to time]

05:34

that goes down in the story so we can imagine that from start to finish from

05:38

the opening line about hearts and death to the final one the entire amount of

05:42

time that passed was just one hour pretty nifty eh...And while Mrs. Mallard [Mrs Mallard sitting on a beach]

05:47

is chilling all alone contemplating life she thinks about the time that has

05:50

passed and the time that has yet to come there would be no one to live for during

05:54

those coming years she would live for herself...

05:58

now that's deep.. it seems that Chipon's ulterior motive was to convey how much

06:03

can change within a person and in the life surrounding them in a really short [Butterfly appears from cocoon]

06:08

period of time Mrs. Mallard goes from shock to grief to recovery to

06:13

thoughtfulness to freedom to drinking in a very elixir of life through that open

06:18

window to horror to death all within the course of a mere 60 minutes time is [Clock working out at a gym]

06:24

therefore a powerful image in symbol form in the story of an hour shifting

06:28

gears let's talk about the tone of this short piece tone is the voice writers

06:32

use to show the reader what sort of attitude they have about [Green frequency line appears]

06:35

the central themes in the work this can be shown in the atmosphere setting and

06:39

specific diction of the piece how would you describe the tone in the story of an

06:44

hour is it cheerful and upbeat, angry and tormented or subtle yet cruel we'll give

06:50

you a hint it's the last one Chipon didn't whack us [Man hit over the head with giant hammer]

06:53

over the head with tone instead she subtly implies that Mrs. Mallard is kind

06:57

of a nasty lady since she values her freedom over her marriage why do you

07:01

think Chopin wrote Mrs. Mallard like this? if you ask me Chipon sympathized

07:06

with Mrs. Mallard but also wanted to sell this story she knew that the popular

07:10

opinion of the day was that any woman would be devastated to learn of their Chipon walking with statue of liberty]

07:13

husband's sudden demise so she wrote a character that readers might find sorta

07:17

horrible but she was able to interject her personal feelings about [Chipon writing in marriage jail]

07:21

the convention of marriage and feeling trapped in a relationship by writing

07:25

this story pretty darn clever Mrs. Chopin we can't take off without talking

07:30

about a few of the major themes in this short story as you recall a theme is the

07:34

main idea about a certain subject in the piece of writing most written work

07:37

doesn't just have one theme and that's true even for short pieces like this one

07:41

the story of an hour has several themes including communication and language

07:44

freedom and confinement, time and death since we already examined time and death [Examples of Chopin's themes in story of an hour]

07:49

and symbols and imagery let's take a closer look at what we can learn through

07:53

the themes of communication and freedom... communication is a fascinating theme and

07:57

story probably because it's a pretty darn interesting thing in real life

08:00

there are varied ways to communicate with other people and animals, plants and

08:05

maybe even other world and everyone communicates in their own special ways [Toy Story alien answers telephone]

08:11

this is mallard sister Josephine and Brentley Mallards buddy Richard are the

08:15

ones who have the terrible job of communicating to Mrs. Mallard that old

08:18

Brentleyy bit the big one once they do Mrs. Mallard communicates her shock and [Richard and Josephine inform Mrs Mallard of her husbands death]

08:23

sadness she wept at once with sudden wild abandonment in her sisters arm and

08:27

the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone she would

08:32

have no one follow her hmm what does this action tell us...Prior to describing

08:37

her reaction Chipon says she did not hear this story as many women have heard the

08:42

same with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance [Mrs Mallard runs down the stairs]

08:47

we know that Mrs. Mallard isn't accepting the news like a normal wife

08:51

might which suggests that something else is going on beneath the apparent grief...

08:55

we then learn for sure that something's up after Mrs. Mallard little time out in

08:59

a room results in her thinking what we get of our thoughts, she breathed a quick

09:03

prayer that life might be long it was only yesterday she had thought with a

09:07

shudder that life might be long in the span of just less than an hour Mrs. [clock ticking forward]

09:12

Mallard learned of her husband's gruesome death and not only did she come

09:16

to grips with it she's practically celebrating it....er, time

09:19

to burst out the streamers and cake? finally the shock of seeing her husband

09:23

still alive is so overwhelming to Mrs. Mallard it results in her untimely death [Heart bate monitor ceases]

09:28

the doctors assumed she died in joy but as the readers we know the truth there

09:33

wasn't a language that could communicate Mrs. Mallards relief at being

09:36

independent nor was there one to express the devastation she felt at having her [Mrs Mallard collapses]

09:41

freedom revoked and freedom isn't something that Mrs. Mallard readily had

09:45

in life she was restricted both by her marriage and her health problems while [Mrs Mallard gripped by marriage and health problems]

09:50

she sits alone thinking about what's happened she starts getting stoked for

09:54

the freedom that's about to be hers she was beginning to recognize this thing

09:58

that was approaching to possess her and she was striving to beat it back with

10:01

her will as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been when she

10:06

abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips

10:09

she said it over and over under her breath free, free, free, someone's clearly

10:16

excited Mrs. Mallard even takes things a step further by imagining how awesome [Mrs Mallard stood in front of Eiffel Tower]

10:20

her future will be her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her

10:25

spring days and summer days all sorts of days that would be her own we hate to

10:30

disappoint you Mrs. Mallard but here's Brentley...that's gotta hurt there's a lot [Mr Brentley appears at the door and Mrs Mallard hits him]

10:37

more to be said about Kate Chopin than the story of an hour but since our time

10:40

is limited we'll leave you now, Chipon was a successful feminist writer a loving

10:45

mother and a champion of forward-thinking

10:47

her writing reflects that she thought outside the box when it came to how [Chopin stood beside a box with boxing gloves]

10:51

women were supposed to act, think and feel she may have passed away at a young

10:55

age but she definitely left her mark during her time

10:57

add enough of our time puns, we'll clock out...

Full Transcript