The Dream of an Hour

Chopin's The Awakening is a quintessential work of feminist literature,
about a woman who feels restricted by the confines of her marriage.
The same themes are at play here; it's more than worth a look.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees
that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of
rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares.
The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly,
and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind,
tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with
love upon her, fixed and gray and dead.
But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come
that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread
her arms out to them in welcome.