Women's Liberation Movement
"The Story of an Hour" has been strongly linked with the ideals of the Women's liberation movement of the 1960s when feminists took a stand to fight to give women more freedom in America. The reason "The Story of an Hour" was an important piece of literary work at this time was because of its radical story. In the story, this housewife who has been confined to the social norms of the obedient wife, has an unorthodox reaction to the death of her husband. She anticipates her newfound freedom from the suppression of her husband, of men, and becomes invigorated by it. This idea is one of the key values of the feminist movement, and thus "The Story of an Hour" was an important literary work to show a woman breaking from the norm of society.
Read more about this topic: The Story Of An Hour
Famous quotes containing the words liberation movement, women, liberation and/or movement:
“Whether we regard the Women’s Liberation movement as a serious threat, a passing convulsion, or a fashionable idiocy, it is a movement that mounts an attack on practically everything that women value today and introduces the language and sentiments of political confrontation into the area of personal relationships.”
—Arianna Stassinopoulos (b. 1950)
“Contrary to all we hear about women and their empty-nest problem, it may be fathers more often than mothers who are pained by the children’s imminent or actual departure—fathers who want to hold back the clock, to keep the children in the home for just a little longer. Repeatedly women compare their own relief to their husband’s distress”
—Lillian Breslow Rubin (20th century)
“Women’s Liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It’s the men who are discriminated against. They can’t bear children. And no one’s likely to do anything about that.”
—Golda Meir (1898–1978)
“What stunned me was the regular assertion that feminists were “anti-family.” . . . It was motherhood that got me into the movement in the first place. I became an activist after recognizing how excruciatingly personal the political was to me and my sons. It was the women’s movement that put self-esteem back into “just a housewife,” rescuing our intelligence from the junk pile of “instinct” and making it human, deliberate, powerful.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)