Women writers were ignored because of the male dominated culture. The Awakening caused a lot of controversy because the story is about a woman exploring her extreme, erotic, and independent thoughts on her life. It is the first time in Literature these thoughts that women had were explored but is not acceptable in her culture. Also in The Awakening the main character who is a woman gets pleasure from a man who is not her husband. In the Awakening Chopin writes, "Even as a child she had lived her own small life all within herself. At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life-that outward existence, which conforms the inward life which questions- (Chopin).This quote suggests that women were to follow the expectations the men had for them but on the inside they were wondering what life would be like without male control. .
Another one of Chopin's works is "The Story of an Hour- where Mrs. Mallard is finally getting to experience freedom after her husband's death, but little does she know her husband is not dead. In this story it reveals women has no rights and has to satisfy their husband's needs. In the Story of an Hour Chopin states, "There would be no powerful will bending her in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have the right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature-(227), and this is not an accepted view of marriage in the 1800's. There is no masculine power anymore trying to control the wife Mrs. Mallard in the story. In the 1800's divorces were frowned upon and the wife had no say in anything. The only way a woman could own property and assets is if the husband died. Chopin experienced this in her life when her husband died in 1882. Chopin got to feel freedom and be independent after she mourned her husband's death. Chopin expressed what she was dealing with in "The Story of an Hour."" Both The Awakening and "The Story of an Hour- are considered to be examples of feminist theory because of the "ideology that privileges masculine ways of thinking and marginalizes women politically, economically, and psychologically- (Ady).