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Analysis of story of an hour by Kate Chopin
Kate Chopin’s "The Story of an Hour
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In the story “Story of an Hour” Kate Chopin creates a character that has an interesting reaction to her husband's death. The character that Chopin created was named Mrs. Louise Mallard. Mrs. Mallard was married to her husband Brently Mallard. They lived in the 1890’s, which is the 19th century. Married women stayed at home and gave all of their attention to their husbands. They rarely left the house because their main focus was to care for their spouse. Louise Mallard’s character exhibits several feelings as she demonstrates the theme of forbidden joy of independence. The first of many emotions shown by Louise is shock and grief. The article, “The Story of an Hour”, says, “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms” (Chopin). Louise instantly started grieving when she heard the news of her husband. Mrs. Mallard, like any person, …show more content…
Mallard went back to her room, stared out of an open window, and thought about what was coming next. As Mrs. Mallard stared out the window, she sensed an opportunity coming her way but she could not grasp what it was (Chopin). At this time, Mrs. Mallard had various things running through her mind. At first she was upset that her husband had died but, when she started to think about what that means for her she sensed a chance for a new beginning. The article “Joy That Kills” says, “The text indicates that Louise’s life is extremely restricted because of her domestic confinement and also suggests that she must have been secretly yearning for a life of her own” (Tseng). Mrs. Mallard was held back from a large part of her life. Being alone was her new beginning. It was feeling that Mrs. Mallard longed for but never got the chance to do. Although Mrs. Mallard was married and the news of her husband's passing was at first devisating, she thought about what it would be life to finally be on her own. Not only was she lost in her thoughts, Mrs. Mallard also became joyful over being
By contrast, Louise Mallard, the protagonist in Chopin's "Story of an Hour", is a moral woman and loving wife, at least by Western standards. Her life is defined by the accepted social ideal of a husband's will as final. She is so inured to this concept that only upon hearing the news of his death does her true feeling of something "too subtle and elusive to name" (199) come forth. What she acknowledges to herself is that her marriage is not happy for her and she often resents her subservient role and "a kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime".
This is a story of a series of events that happen within an hour to a woman named Louise Mallard. Louise is a housewife who learns her husband has died in a train accident. Feeling joy about being free she starts seeing life in a different way. That is until at the end of the story she sees her husband well and alive. She cries at the sight of him and dies. The story ends with a doctor saying “she had died of a heart disease—of the joy that kills” (Chopin). Even though the story doesn’t describe Louise doing chores at the house like in The Storm we know that she was a good wife because of the way she reacts when she learns that her husband is dead. Louise gets described as “young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength” (Chopin). From this line we get a bit of insight into her marriage and herself. We get the idea that she wasn’t happy being married to her husband but still remained with him and did her duties as she was supposed to. In reality her being a good wife was all an act to fit in society’s expectations of a woman being domestic and submissive. As she spend more time in her room alone thinking about her dead husband she realizes life would finally be different for her. She knows that “there would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself” (Chopin) For a long time in
In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, it talks about marriage and a woman’s life in the 1800’s. This story illustrates the stifling nature of a woman’s role during this time through Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to her husband’s death. When Mrs. Mallard obtains news that her husband is dead, she is hurt after a brief moment and then she is delighted with the thought of freedom. This story shows how life was in the mid 1800’s and how women were treated around that time.
Most women in Mrs Mallard’s situation were expected to be upset at the news of her husbands death, and they would worry more about her heart trouble, since the news could worsen her condition. However, her reaction is very different. At first she gets emotional and cries in front of her sister and her husbands friend, Richard. A little after, Mrs. Mallard finally sees an opportunity of freedom from her husbands death. She is crying in her bedroom, but then she starts to think of the freedom that she now has in her hands. “When she abandoned herse...
She has now found a new desire for life. However, without warning, the tone abruptly reverts back to its grief stricken “ horror.” As Mr. Mallard walks in the door, her thoughts, dreams, and aspirations, quickly fade away. Louise’s heart, so weak, simply stops and all bliss transfers into extreme heartache. The drastic changes of tone reveals that freedom can be given and taken from someone in a heartbeat and the heartache will always remain.
She would not have grieved over someone she did not love. Even in the heat of her passion, she thinks about her lost love. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked safe with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. Her love may not have been the greatest love of all time, but it was still love. Marriage was not kind to Mrs. Mallard, her life was dull and not worth living, her face showed the years of repression.
Many people interpret that Louise passes away from shock and disappointment from discovering her husband is actually alive. They feel that when Louise finally accepts that her husband is deceased and she discovers freedom, that seeing her husband alive causes her to get depressed, go into shock, and die. On the other hand, a more unique interpretation of Mallard’s death would be that she passed away from excitement and anxiousness from being completely independent, and having various opportunities in store for herself. Mallard may have not been able to handle the new exhilaration directly after experiencing deep depression and grief from the news of her husband’s accident. Some supporting evidence that Louise did not collapse from seeing her husband alive, is that the passage never directly states that she actua...
To start off, this short story is packed with an abundance of symbolism that further highlights the emotions that Mrs. Mallard was feeling after hearing the devastating news of her husband’s death. Although she is instantly overcome with grief upon hearing the news, there were ‘’patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds…” (Chopin 476). These patches of blue sky represent the plethora of opportunities that await Mrs. Mallard now that she has been given a fresh start, with total and unrestricted freedom. Shortly after, Louise begins to comprehend how her husband’s death has in turn completely changed her life for the better. In addition, Mrs. Mallard’s heart troubles also bear a symbolic significance. Her physical heart complications symbolize her discontent with her lack of freedom in her life and marriage. In contrast, when Mrs. Mallard initially realizes the liberty and independence that she now possesses, “her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood w...
In the short story “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, the reader is introduced to Louise Mallard, the wife of Brently Mallard who supposedly died in a train accident. The story uses multiple literary devices such as irony, conflict and symbolism to convey Mrs. Mallard’s emotions within the hour that she discovers the sudden death of her husband.
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of An Hour” focuses on a woman named Louise Mallard and her reaction to finding out about her husband’s death. The descriptions that the author uses in the story have significance in the plot because they foreshadow the ending.
Upon seeing her husband alive and well Louise realizes that the life she has imagined is not to be. The return of Brently signals a return of the patriarchal oppression in her life, and after imagining herself as an individual and then to be denied the chance to live freely is a punishment far worse than the crime. Louise loses her identity and once again becomes "his wife." Richards once more tries to protect her, a helpless woman, by attempting to block her view from her husband, because of the fragile state of her heart. Mrs. Mallard's strengths are gone, never to be acknowledged by the men in her life. For one, brief hour she was an individual. Now she finds herself bound by masculine oppression with no end in sight, and the result is death.
Kate Chopin, author of “The Story of an Hour” written in 1894 was the first author who emphasized strongly on femininity in her work. In the short story, Chopin writes about freedom and confinement Chopin is an atypical author who confronts feminist matter years before it was assumed. The time period that she wrote in women were advertised as a man’s property. The main idea in the short story is to illustrate that marriage confines women. In “The Story of an Hour” the author creates an intricate argument about freedom and confinement Mrs. Louise Mallard longing for freedom, but has been confined for so long freedom seems terrible. Mrs. Mallard wife of Brently Mallard instantly feels free when her husband dies. The reason she feels this way
Mrs. Mallard who says her husband was loving and nice, still feels a sense of joy and freedom when she thinks he has died. Louise feeling this way suggests that all marriages are oppressive in some way and take away independence from those in them. Louise is introduced as “Mrs. Mallard” at the beginning of the story and referred to as “she” up until she becomes “free” after her husbands death. This lasts until the reader figures out Brently is not dead and her status as a wife is reestablished. The very last sentence in the book, “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease-of joy that kills” (Chopin 301) .The fact that the doctors, who happen to be men, had the last say in Mrs. Mallard’s life is another example of men dictating the way she lives. Chopin makes the setting confined to one hospital room to illustrate the confinements Mrs. Mallard is living in due to her marriage. She finally escapes from that room at the very end of the story but only for seconds before discovering her husband is still alive and it destroys everything she was looking forward
In the short story, “The Story of an Hour,” author Kate Chopin presents the character of Mrs. Louis Mallard. She is an unhappy woman trapped in her discontented marriage. Unable to assert herself or extricate herself from the relationship, she endures it. The news of the presumed death of her husband comes as a great relief to her, and for a brief moment she experiences the joys of a liberated life from the repressed relationship with her husband. The relief, however, is short lived. The shock of seeing him alive is too much for her bear and she dies. The meaning of life and death take on opposite meaning for Mrs. Mallard in her marriage because she lacked the courage to stand up for herself.
Louise Mallard finds personal strength in her husband's death, ready to face the world as a whole person "She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday (prior to her husband's death) she had thought with a shudder that life might be long." The strength conveyed in the image of Louise carrying "herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory" is unmistakable. However, the irony that her husband lives, and therefore, she cannot, conveys the limited options socially acceptable for women. Once Louise Mallard recognizes her desire to "live for herself," and the impossibility of doing so within the bounds of her marriage, her heart will not allow her to turn back.