A Rebirth and a Death in Kate Chopin?s ?The Story of an Hour?

(Kate,1894) ​Response to the story ​I liked the story especially the gentleness with which the sister breaks the death news to avoid causing suffering to the protagonist.in addition, the ironical ending of the story when the dead husband comes home and the wife collapses because she thought he was dead. • Why did Louise Ballard collapse when her dead husband arrived home alive? • What was the author’s intention of choosing a female character as the protagonist of the story? • What is the significance of using irony in the story? Plot ​The story is very interesting and builds an effective climax.

Kate Chopin provides her reader with an enormous amount of information in just a few short pages through her short story, “The Story of an Hour.” The protagonist, Louise Mallard, realizes the many faults in romantic relationships and marriages in her epiphany. “Great care [is] taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death” (Chopin 168). Little do Josephine and Richards know, the news will have a profoundly positive effect on Louise rather than a negative one. “When she abandoned herself,” Mrs. Mallard opened her mind to a new way of life. The word usage shows that the protagonist experienced a significant change.

Chopin uses “The Story of an Hour” to demonstrate her belief not only in the shackles of marriage in that time, but also the cruelty of warping someone to suit your needs. When Mrs. Mallard’s husband dies she is overcome with joy rather than grief and is instilled with a sense of freedom. However, when all that seemed too good to be true is taken from her she cannot handle it and dies under the weight of this discouragement. Chopin’s theme of liberation achieved through her clever use of language drives home her idea that people should be more independent and less constrained by

By contrast, in “The Story of An Hour”, Mrs. Mallard learns of her husband’s death and is filled with joy. She sees the freedom that his death has given her, and understands the restrictions that were placed upon her life by his love. She is so happy about this freedom, that when it is taken away from her, it actually kills her. The two stories are able to examine the complex nature of death and love, and how they can mean very different things depending upon the situation and the people who are involved in the situation. The striking similarity found within the two stories is that love is not strong enough to outweigh other factors such as freedom and guilt.

That evidence is found in her selfish behavior after the death of her husband, Brently Mallard. Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to the sad news was natural, but her time spent to overcome her melancholy feelings passed too rapidly. All of a sudden she was eager to start her widowed life. Immediately after she heard the sad news of her husband’s death, "She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms" (Chopin 25). This is acceptable and understandable to me because I feel that anyone who had just lost his/her spouse would want to be comforted by a close family member.

Literary Analysis of Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” Freedom is one of the most powerful words in the world because of the feeling it gives people. This idea is evident in Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour.” In the story, readers witness the effect freedom can have when the main character, Louise, finds out her husband had passed away. The story begins when Louise’s sister informs her that her husband had been in a terrible accident and he was dead. Once she gets over the immediate shock, she finds herself overwhelmed with joy because she was free to live her life for herself and not her husband. At the end of the story, her husband walks through the front door, and Louise has a heart attack and dies.

Kate Chopin's The Story of An Hour In "The Story of an Hour," Kate Chopin uses characterization, symbols, and conflicts that suggest that in certain situations, the death of a loved one may be a blessing. Such situations may include an abusive relationship, or an unhappy marriage, as this story suggests. In Chopin's story although the circumstances might lead the reader to believe that Louise's husband's death would cause her great pain, ironically, when she hears the news, she feels a great sense of relief. This suggests that death may not always cause grief. Louise's characteristics add to the theme of this story in several ways.

In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” allows one to explore many ironic instances throughout the story, the main one in which a woman unpredictably feels free after her husband’s assumed death. Chopin uses Mrs. Mallard’s bizarre story to illustrate the struggles of reaching personal freedom and trying to be true to yourself to reach self-assertion while being a part of something else, like a marriage. In “The Story of an Hour” the main character, Mrs. Mallard, celebrates the death of her husband, yet Chopin uses several ironic situations and certain symbols to criticize the behavior of Mrs. Mallard during the time of her “loving” husband’s assumed death. In the “Story of an Hour” we observe many instances in which irony takes place. According to the Urban Dictionary irony is “a situation that is strange or funny because things happen in a way that seems to be the opposite of what is expected.” Therefore one of the main ironic situations that happen is upon the central character, Mrs. Mallard, not much is told about her character, but we do know she has a heart disease and she is a dedicated house wife.

Can you imagine the loss of such a thing as your freedom? Mrs. Mallard had just realized that she had her independence, when it was taken from her suddenly. I think the loss independence can be fatal, and in Mrs. Mallard’s case it was. After Mrs. Mallard dies, the doctor incorrectly diagnoses her death as "joy that kills." Now, I hope you can see, as clearly as I do, that Mrs. Mallard did not die of joy that kills, but of the loss of this powerful thing we call freedom.

In fact, the text suggests that Brently is a good husband to Louise and their relationship is not a problem. This is why when Mrs. Mallard receives the news that her husband is on the list of people who were killed in a train crash, she grieves. She isolates herself in her room, stares out an open window, and then involuntarily begins to feel emotions other than sadness and devastation. Feelings of joy and freedom consume her and she becomes internally conflicted. Chopin does much in the text to show that Louise is not a horrible and egotistic person for feeling happiness at the death of her husban... ... middle of paper ... ... Emily, to learn and understand the actuality of their oppression.