Conjured-Up Reality Shattered: Examining the “Uncertain” Ideology Underlying Chopin's “The Story of an Hour”

AbstractIn studying Kate Chopin's “The Story of an Hour” (1894), stylistic tools seem to advocate and support a seamless reading of the “supposed” ideological undercurrent of the story (i.e. emerging Feminism of the late 19th century). However, the mainstream interpretation of the story resulting from a stylistic analysis as such can be undermined by unveiling certain textual aporia. The article tries to examine the consequences of a shift from feminist to masculinist conceptual frame of interpretation and to show how the stylistic study of the story does not “objectively” lead to one single interpretation of the text. The study suggests that stylistics can make much of the achievements of other approaches of literary criticism (e.g. deconstruction) to come up with a more comprehensive analysis of literary works