Story Of An Hour Literary Analysis

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The Story of an Hour encompasses one or two different themes that fit together to make a bigger statement. This story, by Kate Chopin, mainly focuses on how marriage restricted women’s rights, keeping their lives connected to their husband’s own. At the beginning of The Story of an Hour she gets the news that her husband has died and at first displays the usual symptoms of grief. These include sobbing, breaking down and secluding herself into her room away from the eyes of her sister or Richards. After a long moment or so of taking this in she begins to feel a different line of thought. ( Paragraph 10) “Free, free, free!” Describes Mrs. Mallard, after she takes a good view of the world outside her home, getting to the conclusion that with her husband gone her life could be something different than what it was before with her husband alive. Following this the story opens up on a few different subjects that shows that Mrs. Mallard may had been secretly unhappy in a closed and restricted marriage. ( Paragraph 12) “There would be no to live for during the coming years; she would live for herself.” This example from the text shows that she felt like she wasn’t living for herself but living for her husband, Brently Mallard, and this left her life feeling incomplete and unsatisfying. Probably often feeling secluded in her house and got so much from just …show more content…

Mallard wasn’t happy with her life or marriage in this example ( Paragraph 17) “She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.” She felt so out of place in her marriage and life situation that she as a wife wanted her life to be short, and rather die sooner than keep on living with her husband, for her husband more like. The news of her husband’s death though excites her, making her believe that there might be something to keep on living for now instead of just being an accessory to her

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