“Now that she had nothing to lose, she was free” – Paulo Coelo, Eleven Minutes. Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” presents a look into the life of Mrs. Mallard. In the story, Mrs. Mallard receives news of her husband’s death. After receiving the news, she later proceeds to seclude herself in an empty room. In the room, she lets her mind wonder. As she sits in wonder, her emotions oscillates between numbness of grief and extreme joy. When she finally exits the room, she sees that her husband isn’t dead and she dies. In the beginning of the story, it is reveal that she has heart trouble. I think that the ultimate causes of her death are her pre-existing condition, over-excitement and independence, and shock. The first possible cause of Mrs. Mallard’s death would be her pre-existing condition. In the very beginning of the story, it states that …show more content…
Shock plays a very important role as one of the causes of her death. The story very vividly describes her feelings of shock, “She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under the breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.” Her body and mind go through several intense phases. Initially, she doesn’t know why she feels the way she does. Then, she begins to try and fight the feeling back with her will but unfortunately she couldn’t. Finally she shouted her true feelings out and became more comfortable with herself. Then after her being comfortable with her husband being alive she is shocked once again at the end realizing that he is alive and ultimately
They hear the key turning in the front door and Mr. Mallard walks in the door. He was not on the train that he was always on, so he did not die, and it was only speculation from Richards that he had died. Mrs. Mallard was in shock when she saw her ‘dead’ husband walk through the door, and she died right then and there. The doctors said that she died from the “joy that kills”(Pg. 280). But it seems that is not true because she became glad that her husband had passed
In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs. Mallard, who suffers from heart trouble, is notified that her husband had been killed in a railroad disaster and she falls into her sister’s arms weeping. At one point, she truly was in love with her husband. This
Mrs. Mallard in 'The story of an hour', is a woman that has had to live her life composed and in control as the wife of her husband, Brently Mallard. Chopin details Mrs. Mallard's reaction to the news of her husband's death with convolted emotions that were considered appropraite and yet horrifying to the reader. At the end of the story, her death came as no surprise.
Like in many tragically true stories, it would seem Mrs. Mallard 's freedom came too late. Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour” begins by introducing Mrs. Mallard as a person afflicted with heart trouble. The story builds on this by having Mrs. Mallard’s sister Josephine and her husband Richard explain the situation in a very sensitive manner. Their efforts would prove to be in vain however as Mrs. Mallard then proceeds to emotionally break down. The news shocks Mrs. Mallard to her very core and has her at odds with how she should feel now that all was said and done. After coming to terms with her situation, fate delivers its final blow in a cruel and deceitful ploy towards Mrs. Mallards. And with that, Mrs. Mallard 's dies. In her hour of change Mrs. Mallard 's was delicate, thoughtful and excitable.
“Story of an Hour”, Kate Chopin unveils a widow named Mrs. Louise Mallard in which gets the news of her husband’s death yet, the audience would think she would feel sorrowful, depressed, and dispirited in the outcome her reaction is totally unusual. Meanwhile, day after day as time has gone by Mrs. Mallard slowly comes to a strange realization which alters a new outlook over her husband's death. "And yet she had loved him- sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!" (Chopin, 2). The actuality that she finds a slight bit of happiness upon the death of a person who particularly is so close to her is completely unraveling w...
In "The Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin tells the story of a woman, Mrs. Mallard whose husband is thought to be dead. Throughout the story Chopin describes the emotions Mrs. Mallard felt about the news of her husband's death. However, the strong emotions she felt were not despair or sadness, they were something else. In a way she was relieved more than she was upset, and almost rejoiced in the thought of her husband no longer living. In using different literary elements throughout the story, Chopin conveys this to us on more than one occasion.
Upon coming to the realization that her husband did not die in a tragic railroad incident as she was told by her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richards, in the most delicate manner due to her heart troubles, Mrs. Mallard dies suffering from a heart attack. The doctors claim that the cause of her heart attack was from a “joy that kills”(Chopin, Page 3). Throughout this short story, the author Kate Chopin, focuses on visualizing the emotions and the role that the women of the 19th century had as wives. And so, Kate Chopin shows the role of women and what is expected of them by telling a story of a woman who experiences an emotional transformation as soon as she finds out she is a widow. The emotional transformation that Mrs. Mallard
However, once she retires to her own quarters she continues to decipher the rest of her feelings and in them she discovers joy and freedom. So strong was the overwhelming feeling of joy and freedom that she dies. Of course those feelings weren’t enough to kill her, Mrs. Mallard had a heart disease.
Mrs. Mallard was at first overjoyed with freedom because her husband was supposedly “dead,” yet at the end of the story, Mrs. Mallard comes face to face with Mr. Mallard. A whole new wave of emotions overcame Mrs. Mallard as she laid eyes on her husband instantly killing her from “a heart disease-of joy that kills.” It is ironic how Mrs. Mallard is overjoyed about her husband’s death, and she ended up dying because she found out he was alive instead. Her joy literally was killed, killing her on the inside as
The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin, published in the late eighteen hundred describes the marriage of the early nineteenth century. It shows the life of Mrs. Louise Mallard, a woman who experiences pain, joy and freedom for “a short time”. Chopin’s uses the interplay of the symbols, Mrs. Mallard’s heart trouble, the comfortable chair in her room and the front door of the house to represent all that happens to Mrs. Mallard. This story begins with the narrator telling the reader that Mrs. Mallard has “heart trouble” (Chopin 1). Hearts are mostly used as a symbol of love Mrs. Mallard’s heart trouble is viewed deeper than its surface meaning as her being love sick and depressed, this is shown when the narrator explains that Mrs. Mallard, for the most part, did not love her husband (Chopin 13).
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...
Kate Chopin’s story, "The Story of an Hour," may seem to be about Mrs. Mallard’s unexpected and ironic reactions to the news of her husband’s untimely death due to a railroad disaster. At least that’s what I thought when I read the story. It seemed to me that she led a normal life with a normal marriage. She had a stable home life with a kind, loving husband who cared for her. She seemed to love him, sometimes. She had some kind of "heart trouble" (Chopin 25) that didn’t really affect her physically, until the very end. I thought Mrs. Mallard would have been saddened and filled with grief for an adequate period of time after her spouse died, but her grief passed quickly, and she embraced a new life that she seemed to be content with. Therefore I believe there is good evidence that Mrs. Mallard was an ungrateful woman who did not appreciate her husband or his love for her. That evidence is found in her selfish behavior after the death of her husband, Brently Mallard.
Mallard that the reader knew about. The way that she dealt with the death of her husband is very different than you would expect. She was sad at first and was at shock to what has just happened. But then, she came to the realization that she was finally free. “Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own” (Chopin). She finally realizes that with the death of husband, it has freed her to do what she wants to do. This part of the story makes her mood to change from very sad to very happy. It has been an eye opener to the things she could now accomplish and nothing could hold her back. “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease-of the joy that kills” (Chopin). What this quote is saying from the short story is that she died of the shock of seeing her not so dead husband. She thought she was free but seeing him was too much for her at that moment and her heart problems. So much was going through her mind already that seeing him was just over the top. In conclusion, the Story of an Hour, the process of death to the main character was not clear and was an unexpected event to the
Mrs. Mallard receiving news that her husband has passed away does not have the typical response the reader would think she will have. Just by reading this story the reader could tell that Mrs. Mallard is a bit strange, maybe it is because of what could have been happening in her marriage behind the senses or even something she could have been fighting senses her childhood. A critic states, “A woman with heart trouble dies — not when she hears of her husband’s death but when she discovers that he is still alive. ”(Harris). Her character seems very unnatural and odd especially because of the conflict she is going through in her life.
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.