The Story of a Widow in Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour

“There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature.” Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” is the story of a woman’s reaction to the news of her husband’s passing. Mrs. Louise Mallard is a young woman most would conclude to be saddened by the passing of her husband. Yet it is in that very moment we find her true feelings.

Kate Chopin was born Katherine O’Flaherty on February 8, 1850 in St. Louis Missouri. She was the only child born to her parents to live past the age of twenty-five. It was at the age of twenty she met and married her husband Oscar Chopin. They settled in New Orleans where Oscar had a cotton brokerage. Nine years later the family moved to Cloutierville when the business failed. They managed several plantations and opened a general store. In 1882, Oscar Chopin died. Katherine at this time was the mother of six children. Despite efforts to keep her late husband’s plantations and the general store open, she sold the business and moved back to St. Louis at her mother’s request. The following year her mother passed away. It was after facing depression that her obstetrician and family friend suggested that she write as therapy. She was very successful and many of her publications found their way to literary magazines. “ The Awakening” was her second novel published but was highly criticized due to its moral standards. She later would begin writing short stories. Katherine O’Flaherty never made a lot of money from her writings and died at the age of 54 of a brain hemorrhage.

Mrs. Mallard “did not hear the story ...

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...d be Monet's or Morisot's--show how well Chopin had learned the lessons of Maupassant, several of whose stories she translated. She was a life-long connoisseur of rickety marriages, and all her wisdom is on display in her piercing analysis of this thoroughly average one."

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is a surprising and shocking story of a woman’s reaction to the news of her husband’s death. It is the tale of a woman who believes she will be living the remaining of her days for herself. Not longer to be bound by a marriage where she found little love or joy. “There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.”