“Bir Saatin Öyküsü” veya Ataerkil İdeolojinin Gölgesinde Kaybolmuş Bir Kadının Hayat Hikâyesi

Feminist edebiyatın öncü romanlarından biri olan Uyanış’ın yazarı Kate Chopin, aynı zamanda yazdığı birçok öykü ile tanınır. Amerikan edebiyatının özgün isimlerinden Kate Chopin’in kısa öyküleri, aynı temleri yoğunlaştırılmış bir şekilde dile getirmesi nedeniyle romanlarından daha başarılı olarak kabul edilir. Kendi özgün biçemini geliştiren Chopin, öykülerinde ataerkil toplumun kadına biçtiği rolü yadsır, öznelliklerine sahip olamamış ve seslerini duyuramamış kadınların egemen kültür tarafından dışlanışlarını ve nasıl temsil edildiklerini simgeleyen kadın tipleri yaratır. Yazarın en çok okunan ve bilinen öyküleri arasında yer alan ve bu çalışmanın konusunu oluşturan The Story of an Hour’da, Louise Mallard’ın yaşamındaki bir saat anlatılır. Yazar öykü boyunca toplumdaki alışılagelmiş evlilik kurumunu, erkek-kadın ilişkilerini, erkeğin üstünlüğünü ve kadının bastırılmışlığını dile getirir. Yeni bir “ben” ve “kimlik” arayışı içinde olan Louise’in özgürlük arayışı kahramanın karakteri ve psikolojisi ile gözler önüne serilir. Evlilik kurumunun kadın üzerindeki olumsuz etkileri evrende kendisini yapayalnız hisseden bir kadın imgesi ile okuyucuya aktarılır. Bu anlamda The Story of an Hour feminizmin misyonunu günümüzde de devam ettiren politik bir amaca sahiptir. Öykü boyunca Chopin’in sanatsal bir bakışla kadın yaşantısının parçalarını bir araya getirme çabası irdelenir ve kadının var olma savaşında bireysel değerlerle toplumsal değerlerin çatışması gözler önüne serilir.

Kate Chopin, author of the proto-feminist novel, The Awakening, was also a prolific writer of short stories. In American literature, because of their economy, Chopin’s short stories can be considered to be more successful than her novel as she uses fewer words to express the same theme. The Story of an Hour which is Chopin’s briefest and most widely read stories is the story of the last hour in the life of Mr. Mallard’s wife. Throughout the story Chopin implies a very conventional male-female relationship in marriage where husband is the authority figure and a wife is a submissive dependent. Mrs. Mallard’s search for individuality and freedom: freedom to decide what to be, how to think, and how to live is epitomized in her character and psychology. So The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin represents a negative view of marriage by presenting the reader with a woman who is completely alone in the universe. Chopin’s writings as a new feminist voice put much emphasis on women’s lives and their continual struggles to create an identity of their own within the boundaries of the patriarchy. She repeatedly deals with tabooing subject of women’s sexual urge and sensual experiences. The Story of an Hour reflects Chopin’s view of the repressive role that marriage played in women’s lives as the protagonist, Louise Mallard, feels immense freedom only when her husband has died. While he is alive, she must live for him, and only when he dies does her life once again become her own. In The Story of an Hour Chopin employs specific structural and stylistic techniques to heighten the drama of the hour. The structure Chopin has chosen for The Story of an Hour fits the subject matter perfectly. The story is short, made up of a series of short paragraphs, many of which consist of just two or three sentences. Likewise, the story covers only one hour in Louise Mallard’s life from the moment she learns of her husband’s death to the moment he unexpectedly returns alive. The short, dense structure mirrors t he intense hour Louise spends contemplating her new independence. Just as Louise is completely immersed in her wild thoughts of the moment, we are immersed along with her in this period of time. The story is very short, but the impact it makes is powerful. In sum, through her story, Kate Chopin undermines patriarchy by endowing “the other”, the woman, with an individual identity and a sense of self, a sense of self to which the letters she leaves behind gives voice. Her writing challenged the American literary tradition by her bold expression of woman’s longing for sexual and personal freedom in a way that was previously unknown. The aim of the study is to present the limitations on women in the traditional role of wife in conventional marriage and the narrow confinement of and the limited range of possibilities for self-fulfillment for women in society through the character, Louise Mallard, of Chopin’s one of daring stories, The Story of an Hour