Inept Victorian Regimes

A detailed Summary of Inept Victorian Regimes

During the late 19th Century, society deemed women as housewives, with little or no chance for social mobility. As a matter of fact, they weren't even allowed to vote in National Elections until the 1920's. Kate Chopin, who lived in this time era, writes three different stories, "Ripe Figs", "Story of an Hour", and "The Storm" about three young women in very similar situations, Babette, Mrs. Mallard, and Calixta respectively. Chopin's stories show that regardless of economic position or social status, young women growing up in this time period were all similarly faced with Victorian regimes which were becoming increasingly inept.

The first and most important similarity between the three characters is how they desire a little more freedom which had been withheld by society. Babette, for example, is a young girl that lives with her godmother, Mamam-Nainaine, and desires freedom to go visit her cousins. Her godmother imposes a condition that she would allow her to go, but only when the figs ripened. This was not just to cause her granddaughter unnecessary anxiety, it was to prepa

Calixta, on the other hand, desires the type of freedom that even today is viewed as unacceptable in most societies. She portrays a young married woman in a lower social class than either Babette or Mrs. Mallard. She takes advantage of the time that her husband and child are away to have an extramarital affair. Not that she consciously wants an affair, but her desire is obvious because the story lets us know from the very beginning that she felt "very warm" (Storm, 27).

Unlike Mrs. Mallard or Calixta, Babette is the only woman who is not married, and therefore portrays a much more "innocent" character. She is quite open about her desire and expresses it outwardly, unlike Mrs. Mallard and Calixta, who hide their desires through hypocritic means in order to mislead their husbands. The means by which they gain their freedom clearly correlates to this assumption. Babette gains her freedom by obedience and patience; until the figs were ripe just like grandma had ordered. Mrs. Mallard gains her temporary freedom by chance; a freak train accident that had supposedly killed her husband

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Approximate Word count = 731
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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