“There would be no one to live for her during those coming years: she would live for herself.”
Kate Chopin, “The Story of an Hour”
My Writing Process:
- From the beginning of this class, I knew I would enjoy writing this essay the most because of my interest in psychology. I had a hard time deciding which text to write about, so I spent quite a bit of time scouring through the anthology to try and find a story or a poem that I really loved. Surprise, surprise, I ended up loving another Kate Chopin story.
- After reading through “The Story of an Hour” a few times, underlining the main ideas and interesting moments, I started to think about how to apply psychoanalytic theory to the text. I decided on a Freudian analysis of how the id, superego, and ego play a role in Louise’s different reactions to her husband’s death.
- Before beginning on my first draft, I put together an outline that highlighted my main points and my working thesis. My overall argument was that the battle for dominance between Louise’s id and superego ultimately lead to her death at the end of the story.
- Originally, I was worried that it would be hard to write a full essay about a story so short, but as soon as I started writing, I found that I had a lot to analyze and discuss. Using other sources to complement my arguments really helped, too.
- The comments I received on my first draft from my peers were really helpful. They pointed out weak spots in my argument and suggested ways to improve it. Dr. Pennington’s comments on my first draft were a lot more positive than I expected them to be, so I was pleasantly surprised. However, he said that I needed to have a more critical focus throughout my essay, so that is what I worked on in my first revision.
- My first revision was really close to portfolio consideration, but Dr. Pennington suggested that I revise my thesis in order to place more significance on Louise’s death at the end of the story. I also needed to make some of my topic sentences critically connect back to my thesis.
- After I made those changes, I had an essay that was ready for portfolio consideration, one that might even make Freud proud.
