THE EMOTIONAL CONDITION OF A WIFE IN KATE CHOPIN'S THE STORY OF AN HOUR AS A FEMINISM STUDY

The Story of an Hour is one of Kate Chopin’s short stories, that describes a woman in 1894s. This short story tells about the life of a woman, especially the life of the main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard. She is the victim of inequality between man and woman. It is very interesting to analyze this because this story is close to the reality in patriarchal society. The patriarchal society, defines that man is the first class and woman is the second class. A husband can control his wife’s life. Domination of man can affect woman’s emotional conditions. In this paper, the aims of this thesis are: to knows characters in The Story of an Hour, to analyze the emotional conditions of the main character, and to find how the setting of time and place influence the emotional condition of Mrs. Louise Mallard. In order to complete this thesis, the writer uses Library research to get data and information that have connection with this thesis. The writer also uses the approach of feminist psychoanalysis to analyze this short story. Feminism is an approach that focuses on woman. The psychoanalysis as an approach is focused on the emotional conditions of woman. Finally, the result of the research shows that the emotional conditions of Mrs. Louise Mallard influences her personality, her moods and her motivation. She wants to get the freedom.