“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is a short story of an hour in Mrs. Mallards life when she learns of her husband’s death. A friend of Mr. Mallard’s, having learned the information, brought the news of his death. Mrs. Mallard, who suffers from a heart condition, was told very gently by her sister Josephine that her husband had been killed. She wept at once in her sister’s arms. After crying she goes to her room to be alone; she understands the right way one is to behave. I believe Mrs. Mallard to be truly grieved over her husband’s death; at the same time, she begins to see life in a brand-new light. Mrs. Mallard’s husband seemed very much in control of the marriage as well as his wife. In those days women were thought of as weak and incapable of taking care of themselves. In contrast, Mrs. Mallard was an intelligent, independent woman who was very oppressed in her circumstances. After Mrs. Mallard realizes her husband has not died, all her hope of her new independent life fades and that devastation kills her. I believe Mrs. Mallard to be a sympathetic character because she clearly grieved while thinking her husband had passed. I feel very saddened also …show more content…
Mallard’s friend, Richard, learned of his death in a railroad accident while at the newspaper office. Mr. Mallard’s name was leading the list of “killed” (p.234). He knows that Mr. Mallard’s wife is afflicted with a heart trouble, so he wants to break the news as gently as possible. She is told by her sister Josephine of his death. After being told of Brently’s death she cries at once, with wild abandon in her sister’s arms. Her grief is very sincere. Later, when she is alone in her room her heart beats strongly and her body warms. Mrs. Mallard “does not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance” (p.234). The reality of having a life of her own brought her hope. With this hope comes a deep overwhelming fear because freedom now belongs to
Kate Chopin indirectly revealed that Mrs. Mallard was a lonely person through her actions. This is accurate because the story says, “... she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.” This shows that when her husband died, she felt extremely lonely, but she also could have felt that way even when Brently Mallard was around because it says, “And yet she had loved him -- sometimes,” proving that she also felt lonely when Brently was around. All in all, Kate Chopin showed that Mrs. Mallard had many character traits through her thoughts, speech, actions, looks, and relationships
After she read the story, she said that the reader can definitely have some sympathy for Mrs. Mallard. She claimed that Mrs. Mallard was probably very tired of having to take care of her husband all the time and her not being able to do anything else. My mother said that now that her husband was dead, she will be able to continue on with her life freely without having to worry about anything else. She said that it is often the case back home in India, where she is from. In India, women often do not hold jobs and are instead housewives tending to their husbands. However, she did point out that Mrs. Mallard would have likely gotten remarried as she cannot earn money because of her status as a
Mrs. Mallard, the protagonist or main character, was the wife of Mr. Mallard and she had a heart condition. When the news came that her husband died, her sisters made sure they delivered the news to her in a cautious manner; the news was that her husband died in a tragic train accident. Initially, she was heartbroken about the news, but she then concluded she would be able to experience happiness. Mrs. Millard was overcome with grief, but afterwards all she could whisper is, “Free! Body and soul free!”
When Mrs. Mallard was told of her husband’s death she "did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance" (Chopin 25). This shows that Mrs. Mallard was not utterly grief-stricken or she would have had this so-called "glazed-over look." She also did not deny her husband’s death, which is another natural reaction to the loss of someone you deeply care about.
Marriage for Mrs. Mallard meant death must take place to her individuality. She was obligated to become the product of her husband's desires. Living in a state of constantly feeling a “powerful will bending her,” Mrs. Mallard was unable to act as her true self during her marriage (66). As long as she was legally bound to a man, her dreams and ambitions must stay sealed by suppression. “She had thought with a shudder that life might be long,” tells readers that she could not embrace this reality (66).
Mallard gets the news she goes into her room to have some alone time. She’s in there for awhile so her sister goes and check on her but Mrs. Mallard locked the door, her sister was worried about her and thought she was making herself ill but Mrs. Mallard replies to her sister and says “Go away. I am not making myself ill.” (16) At this moment Mrs. Mallard was actually happy about her husband’s death the evidence that supports it is after she tells her sister she’s not making herself ill, “
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...
This reflection period allowed Mrs. Mallard free herself from the life she had with her husband. Once she discovered that her husband was still alive, she passed away as the event was overwhelming for her. Mrs. Mallard feared her husband in a way that affected her perception in life—that men are the dominating figure. Through the feminist criticism
Mrs.Mallard chose to accept the truth, weep and become haunted by the news and yet later the story takes an unexpected turn. She later becomes fine with the outcome for it lead her to freedom. The views of death and its significance with both writers is written with a strong aura of suffering and
“The story of an hour” by Kate Chopin is a short story about the reflection of the author’s life experience from women and independence. In this story, Louise Mallard, the main character, is a married woman with a heart condition, suddenly became a widow when her husband died. She decided to break against the rule of the society once it came to her mind to become a free woman. In the beginning of the story, Mrs. Mallard, a wife who suffers from heart trouble, is known simply by her married name.
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.
Mallard on behalf of those married women in low social status and lived in the shadow of men but still aspire to freedom. At the beginning of the story, Mrs. Mallard was described as a weaker person with heart problems, “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms.”, which shows her grief and shock while female is emotional and women might be the weak group in the society, but when she slowly calmed down and awakened her feminist consciousness to pursue freedom, a sense of excitement controlled her thoughts; then, she began to appear as a stronger woman. Her volatility of emotion contributed to the development of the whole story, where these emotions changed among suddenly sad weeping, calming down, feared, excited, joyful, disappointed. The author set a comparison with the different reactions of Mrs. Mallard and her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richards when they heard Mr. Mallard’s death. Josephine and Richards from the beginning of the story treated her carefully to avoid her heart attack hearing this sad new.
Mrs. Mallard is the character we know the most about by far. Of course, that's not saying much. She's the protagonist, the center of attention, and the person around whom all the other characters revolve. At the beginning of the story, when Mr. Mallard dies, the other characters (Richards and Josephine) put aside their personal grief to console Mrs. Mallard. Their first priority is taking care of her – making sure she gets through the hard news without dying herself.
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.
The first reader has a guided perspective of the text that one would expect from a person who has never studied the short story; however the reader makes some valid points which enhance what is thought to be a guided knowledge of the text. The author describes Mrs. Mallard as a woman who seems to be the "victim" of an overbearing but occasionally loving husband. Being told of her husband's death, "She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance." (This shows that she is not totally locked into marriage as most women in her time). Although "she had loved him--sometimes," she automatically does not want to accept, blindly, the situation of being controlled by her husband. The reader identified Mrs. Mallard as not being a "one-dimensional, clone-like woman having a predictable, adequate emotional response for every life condition." In fact the reader believed that Mrs. Mallard had the exact opposite response to the death her husband because finally, she recognizes the freedom she has desired for a long time and it overcomes her sorrow. "Free! Body and soul free! She kept whispering." We can see that the reader got this idea form this particular phrase in the story because it illuminates the idea of her sorrow tuning to happiness.