Critical Analysis of “The Story of an Hour”
Because of Mrs. Mallard's heart condition, everyone basically takes care of her very carefully. When her sister and family friend find out that Mr. Mallard got killed in an accident, they take time to tell Mrs. Mallard that her husband died. She cries, then goes to her room to be by herself and locks the door. Inside, she seems terrified of some realization that comes to her and she finally realizes that it's her freedom. Even though they loved each other, and she's saddened by his death, she feels free for the first time. While Mrs. Mallard is having this realization, her sister keeps trying to check on her. Finally, Mrs. Mallard comes out of her room, and they start to go downstairs. Suddenly, Mr. Mallard, who isnt really dead, comes in. When Mrs. Mallard sees him, she has a massive shock and dies.
“The Story of an Hour” has Mrs. Mallard show thoughts and emotions that can support and go against the feminist perspective. At the beginning, Mrs. Mallard is overcome with grief with the loss of her husband. This shows that the female is an emotional person compared to men. It was normal for her to be upset with the death of her husband, but the story had both her sister and her husband’s friend be there to break the news to her. Mrs. Mallard has heart problems which can make the reader see her as a weaker person right at the beginning of the story.
Another way to make Mrs. Mallard appear as a weaker person was when she went to her room alone to cry. After she goes in her room she goes to the chair and the story says, “Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.” This shows us that her emotions caused her physic...
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...was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.” The death of her husband gave her a new look of life in her future. Now that she could live for herself, she wanted nothing more. When she was forced into the role of a fearful and obedient wife, she didn’t see a point in living. She would have rather died young then to have to obey her husband for the rest of her life. After she says this, her husband walks into their home and she realizes that he wasn’t really dead all along. She finally allowed herself to think of her life as living for herself. I think that the shock and disappointment in not being allowed the new life is what killed her. She got her wish in the end and lived a short life, which is what she wanted all along if she was forced to live her life for her husband. It seems like her body gave her what her mind wanted.
Mrs. Mallard, in the story, had heart trouble and was carefully let down when they had discovered her husband’s death. Chopin said, “She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams” (307). Throughout the entire story the reader is lead to believe she is sad over her husband’s death; when in reality she feels free again and she cries tears of joy. The story continues to tell the reader about Mrs. Mallard’s grievance, “She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she had saw beyond that bitter moment a long with love upon her fixed and gray and dead. But her absolutely” (Chopin 307). Mrs. Mallard looked forward to being free from her husband even though she loved him sometimes. She kept whispering, “free! Body and soul free!” (Chopin 308). As her sister thought she was weeping tears of sadness, Mrs. Mallard was happy. As Mrs. Mallard collected herself, she and her sister walked down to the bottom of the stairs together. The door began to open, it was her husband Brentley Mallard, and Mrs. Mallard passed away from “hear disease- of joy that kills” (Chopin 308). The situational irony in this story is Mrs. Mallard
Mrs. Mallard’s husband is thought to be dead, and since she has that thought in her mind she goes through many feelings
Mrs. Mallard's confusion begins by her first feeling "sudden, wild abandonment, " but then a short while after begins to have strange feelings of relief.
is also oppressed by the circumstances within her marriage. Mrs. Mallard however suppressed her feelings and of unhappiness and in which the story implies puts stress on her heart. The announcement of her husband death brings on conflicting feelings of grief and joy. Mrs. Mallard paradoxical statement about the death of her husband changes her perception about life. “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.
In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, is a clear example of how Mrs. Mallard will not recognize that she feels like a prisoner, but the moment she knows that her husband is “dying”, she feels freedom instead of sadness. Mrs. Mallard has a heart disease and Richards try to tell her the news carefully so she won’t suffer an attack. The house is her place but she feels like a prisoner and after the news she feels like is she is release from the house. She is happy but when she sees her husband on the door she feel like everything will go back to the way it was. Mrs. Mallard is a women with thoughts about her freedom, she will imagine about what she will ever want, she will look outside the window and look at the new life. explore the men’s world.
Mallard’s excitement towards her recent discovery of her deeply embedded desire for freedom accentuates the importance of women’s freedom in society. During the 1890’s, the time period in which this piece was written, most women experienced limited amounts of freedom in their lives, as they were bound to their husbands and other loved ones, and many of them were never truly able to extinguish their inner flame to pursue their dreams and live an unconstricted life. Luckily, today, many women are exceptionally independent, and very few struggle to realize their desire to live freely. Throughout the short story, “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin, Mrs. Murray’s unhappiness towards her husband’s return and her realization for her longing for freedom exhibit Chopin’s desire to change women’s limited freedom in their relationships and general lives. As Tennessee Williams wisely noted, “Caged birds accept each other, but flight is what they long
Mallard faces is cause for the upcoming events that take place for her transformation physically and mentally inside the locked doors of the bedroom. Jamil points out that this room is a representation of her “[locking] out social conventions” (Jamil, 217) of the era. This is inferred by the transformation that begins shortly afterward as she becomes aware of the new lease on life that she's been given due to her husband's death. This internal change is symbolized with a physical change as Jamil states that “Louise’s apparent emotional anemia has given way to healthy blood circulation” (Jamil, 218) which would cause her to physically look different with a more vibrant skin tone. Re-addressing the prior situation, imagine all the oppression of the previous situation suddenly lifted of-of your shoulders. a sudden relief that gave shimmer of hope for a better life that is why I believe Jamil’s image of “emotional anemia” (S. Salina Jamil, 217) makes sense it seems as if Mrs. Mallard has come back to life completely transforming her into a different person. Overall, Jamil could pick apart “The Story of an Hour” and break it down to where the emotions expressed in the story make
Mrs. Mallard Chopn’s main character in “The Story of an Hour”, has under gone the loss of her husband Mr. Mallard. The story depicts that she has been contemplating through different feeling about the situation. Mrs. Mallard may start off as a timed wife, however through the death of her husband sorrow and sadness turns to freedom and respite. Mrs. Mallard knows and understands the way how women should be treated like.
For women, the 19th century was a time of inequality, oppression, and inferiority to their male counterparts. A woman's social standing depended solely on her marital status. For these reasons many women were forced to lead a life of solitude and emotional inadequacy, often causing depression. In Kate Chopin's short story "The Story of an Hour," setting plays a significant role in illustrating the bittersweet triumph of Mrs. Mallard's escape from oppression at the ironic cost of her life.
The story begins on a very sad note especially in the eyes of a reader. Mrs. Mallard is said to have a “heart
People are always trying to keep it away. Someone is always guarding Mrs. Mallard against a potential shock, which could lead to her death due to her heart trouble. When the author unleashes the sad tale of how Mr. Mallard has “died” in a train accident upon the readers the characters quickly rush to Mrs. Mallard's side for any unexpected bad news, such as the death or her husband, could mean the end of Mrs. Mallard's life as well. With the constant fear of daeth lingering over the house and the worry of Mrs. Mallrd's heart problems the audience is left to worry that Mrs. Mallard will grieve herself to death over the loss of her husband. However, Mrs. Mallard is actually estatic about. The audience believes that Mr. Mallard is dead and the Mrs. Mallard will finally be able to live out her dream of being free. However, after Mr. Mallard unexpectedly returns home the author states “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease...” (Choping, 308) Death, it seems, is bound and determined to take one of the Mallard’s that day.
Women weren’t given the same rights as men. No one ever considered their opinions, or heard their desires and feelings. However, in “Story of an Hour” one of the major themes is freedom. Once Mrs. Mallard receives the bad news of her husbands death she is upset, but that doesn't last. She becomes a woman free from male dominance. In the end she discovered that Mr. Mallard isn’t dead, and she dies of what the doctor says was her heart disease and joy. I see this story as a female struggle.Women were never superior to men back then, and Mrs. Mallard shows us that when she dies because even her short fantasies of freedom weren’t real.
“The Story of an Hour” is the story of Mrs. Louise Mallard who suffers of a weak heart. This being the first we know of Mr. Mallard, she is carefully being told that her husband had just passed away in a train accident. As every good wife should, Mrs. Mallard breaks out in grief. At first, the story goes, as it should. Then Mrs. Mallard goes into her room where she begins thinking, and her first thought is that she is free. Mrs. Mallard after years of being in an unhappy marriage is finally free to do what she wants, with no one to hold her back. Yet everything is against her, when she finally accepts that her life will begin now, her husband enters his home, unscathed and well, not having known that everyone thought him dead, a...
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.
The story takes place in the late nineteenth century, a time when women had very limited rights. Mrs. Mallard, a young woman who has a bad heart, plays the main character in this story. She receives news that her husband has been killed in a railroad accident. Mrs. Mallard is shocked and bewildered by the death of her husband. However, the feeling of bewilderment is only a temporary feeling that quickly leads to an overwhelming sense of freedom. A freedom she has desperately longed for. Yet, shortly after receiving the news of her husbands death there is a knock at the door. Upon opening the door, she discovers that her husband is not dead, for he is standing in the doorway alive and well. Mr. Mallard’s appearance causes his wife to die. “[T]he doctors … said she [has] died of heart disease – of jo...