Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Mrs. louise mallard the story of an hour character traits
Analysis the story of an hour by kate chopin
Analysis the story of an hour by kate chopin
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In 1894, Kate Chopin wrote “The Story of an Hour.” The story is about a young woman, named Mrs. Louise Mallard, whose husband died in a railroad accident. Mrs. Mallard struggles with heart troubles, and her sister must break the news to her gently in order to prevent her from having an attack of some sort. Eventually, the news is broken, but Mrs. Mallard takes the news differently than most wives would. Kate Chopin uses literary tools such as figurative language, symbolism, and characters’ qualities to elaborate the details of her short story “The Story of an Hour.”
On February 8, 1850, Kate O’Flaherty was born to become a renowned author, Kate Chopin. She grew up among widowed women: her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, for her father had died. All of them were notorious for their intelligence and independence. She was sent to Sacred Heart Academy in St. Louis at age five until her father died. Chopin returned home for two years and then went back to Sacred Heart Academy, where she was also known for her intelligence, for she was at the top of her class. After winning numerous medals, she was elected into Children of Mary Society. All of her siblings had died, leaving her the only child to live past 25. She married at age 20 to Oscar Chopin. When her husband died, she moved in with her mother. Soon after, her mother died as well. Chopin started writing to support her six sons. Almost immediately, she was successful and her first novel was published in 1890. “The Story of an Hour” was written four years later. After numerous pieces of literature, she died in August 1904 of a cerebral hemorrhage, leaving a lasting legacy of triumph (Wyatt).
In “The Story of an Hour,” Chopin used figurative language such as personific...
... middle of paper ...
...rotecting husband. Some may say he was abusive towards his wife, and others could think he was just a man who wanted to be up to society’s standards when it came to taking care of his wife. He probably worked hard and came home late every day just to provide for his wife in the hope he could create a family with her. Although many may not think you could inquire very much about Mr. Mallard, he was one of the main characters of the story. One has to “read between the lines” to truly understand his place.
If Kate Chopin had not used the literary tools she did, some being figurative language, symbolism, and descriptions of characters, her short story probably would not have turned out as astounding as it did. She used each one to work the way she needed them and to highlight each detail of her story.
Works Cited
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/hour/katebio.html
Mallard loved Brently. The narrator elaborates. She loved Brently “sometimes.” Further, the narrator explains that whether Mrs. Mallard loved him “sometimes” or not often it did not matter because when it came to love in their marriage Mrs. Mallard now recognized that the most important part of her life was “this possession of self-assertion.” This self-assertion now consumed her being. It was “the strongest impulse of her being” because now she was “[F]ree! Body and soul free! Mrs. Mallard now wanted her own identity. Entering her room, she was known as Mrs. Mallard. Her identity was through her marriage to Brently Mallard. Through her epiphany of emotions and self-discovery, the reader recognizes Mrs. Mallard to be Louise. She discards her married self and takes on a new persona by “drinking in a very elixir of life through that open
Kate began to express a sexual activity that was a temporary phase that had no consequences. The tittle “The Strom” is a symbolism of abstract because as a reader, you can feel the suspense building up in the story. It is a symbol of femininity and a temporary phase of passion and sexuality. In addition, Kate was passionate about her writing. For example, when the narrator said, “A bolt struck a tall chinaberry tree at the edge of the field.” (123). The lighting bulb is a concrete symbol of temporary, passionate, and energetic the between the lovers. In her writing, Kate Chopin symbolized a lot of emotions in throughout her story. The narrator said, “When he touched her breasts they gave themselves up in quivering ecstasy, inviting his lips. Her mouth was a fountain of delight. And when he possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life 's mystery”. (123). Also symbols how passionate she became towards him and she became eager of wanting
Using the biographical lens a reader can understand her work more thoroughly and get a better sense of what she is trying to say. Kate’s unusual upbringing had a major role in her view on the world and helped shape not only her stories but her characters as well. The Awakening and “The Story of an Hour” are just two examples where Kate uses real life people and places to get her inspiration from. A little bit of Kate Chopin’s life can be seen throughout many of her short stories and novels.
Alice Petry Hall gives readers of Kate Chopin’s works an exceptional overview of this author’s life, sharing Chopin’s understanding of fundamental issues based on critical essays, interviews, criticisms, and Chopin’s personal notes.
The story is very short, but every word has import in the story and each line has great depth of meaning. It is possible to infer a great deal about the woman's life, even though we are given very little on the surface. A telegraph and a railroad are mentioned in the first paragraph, so there is some idea of the time the story takes place. We are also given her married name and the full name of her husband. The fact that she is referred to only as "Mrs. Mallard", while her husband's full name is given, coupled with what we learn on the second page, gives some indication of the repression she's had to suffer through and the indignity society placed on woman in those times. We also learn in the first paragraph that she lives in a man's world, for, though it is her sister that tells her the news, it is her husband's friend who rushes over with the story. Even after his death, she is confined to the structures she adopted with married life, including the close friend's of her husband.
In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, it talks about marriage and a woman’s life in the 1800’s. This story illustrates the stifling nature of a woman’s role during this time through Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to her husband’s death. When Mrs. Mallard obtains news that her husband is dead, she is hurt after a brief moment and then she is delighted with the thought of freedom. This story shows how life was in the mid 1800’s and how women were treated around that time.
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.
Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour. Kate Chopin was a Victorian writer whose writing manifests her life experiences. She was not happy with the principles of the time, because women had fewer rights, and they were not considered equal to men. Afraid of segregation from society, people lived in a hypocritical world full of lies; moreover, Kate Chopin was not afraid of segregation, and used her writing as a weapon against oppression of the soul.
Kate Chopin was a woman and a writer far ahead of her time. She was a realistic fiction writer and one of the leaders and inspirational people in feminism. Her life was tragic and full of irregular events. In fact, this unusual life had an enormous effect on her writings and career. She depicted the lifestyle of her time in her works. In most of her stories, people would find an expansion of her life’s events. In her two stories “The Storm” and “The Story of One Hour” and some of her other works she denoted a lot of her life’s events. Kate Chopin is one of those writers who were influenced by their life and surrounded environment in their fiction writing, and this was very clear in most of her works.
Kate Chopin’s story “The Story of an Hour” focuses on a married woman who does not find happiness in her marriage. When she hears of her husband’s death, the woman does not grieve for long before relishing the idea of freedom. Chopin’s story is an example of realism because it describes a life that is not controlled by extreme forces. Her story is about a married nineteenth-century woman with no “startling accomplishments or immense abilities” (1271). Chopin stays true to reality and depicts a life that seems as though it could happen to any person.
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.
Kate Chopin is able to illuminate her stories with clever language and meaning. As well as an immense criticism as to how society oppresses the individual in the glorified institution of marriage. Through language, she is able to introduce the thought of deeper meanings. “The Story of an Hour” being a prime example of the individual that has a need for freedom for herself. Through symbolism and straightforward comments, the freedom that Mrs. Louisa Mallard is notable just as her marriage is oppressive.
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.
Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour is a brilliant short story of irony and emotion. The story demonstrates conflicts that take us through the character’s emotions as she finds out about the death of her husband. Without the well written series of conflicts and events this story, the reader would not understand the depth of Mrs. Mallard’s inner conflict and the resolution at the end of the story. The conflict allows us to follow the emotions and unfold the irony of the situation in “The Story of an Hour.”
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.