In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, she introduces the characters by stating that Mrs. Mallard has a heart disease, so Richards, Mr. Mallard's friend, and Josephine, Mrs. Mallard's sister must break the news to her very carefully. When she hears the news, she weeps “with wild abandonment” at first, and when she has stopped crying, she goes up to her room and locks herself in. While she has a feeling of deep sadness, the positive imagery in the open window in her room shows the beauty in life, greatly contrasting her current emotions towards her husband's death. After seeing this, she slowly has an epiphany and gets a new, sweeter feeling, which she reveals as freedom. She knew she would weep again at his funeral, but she could now live …show more content…
At the time, women could not even own property. She felt overwhelming joy and hope for the future. All the while, her sister pleads her to open the door, thinking that she might make herself ill. Louise looked out the window once more, and then opens the door to her sister. While descending down the stairs with her sister, Josephine, the front door opens and her husband enters through it. Upon seeing this, she immediately dies of a heart attack. The doctors say that she died of immense joy, which strained her heart and killed her, but the reader can assume otherwise based on her past emotions. While she loved her husband and he loved her, the marriage held her back. It repressed her and escaping it gave her a sweet sense of freedom. She saw the true beauty of the scenery outside her window, and could now live her life however she pleased. She felt this freedom for a few minutes before the sight of her husband in the doorway, alive and well, tantalizingly ripped that feeling away. She did not die of happiness, but rather the heartbreak of having to go back to the oppressive life she had previously
In The Story of an Hour, the main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard, is a young woman with a heart condition who learns of her husband’s untimely death in a railroad disaster. Instinctively weeping as any woman is expected to do upon learning of her husband’s death, she retires to her room to be left alone so she may collect her thoughts. However, the thoughts she collects are somewhat unexpected. Louise is conflicted with the feelings and emotions that are “approaching to possess her...” (Chopin 338). Unexpectedly, joy and happiness consume her with the epiphany she is “free, free, free!” (Chopin 338). Louise becomes more alive with the realization she will no longer be oppressed by the marriage as many women of her day were, and hopes for a long life when only the day prior, “…she had thought with a shudder that life may ...
In Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour,” Louise Mallard, is going through a life changing event that is brought on by the news of the death of her husband’s death, grieves for a very short time and discovers that she will now be able to live for herself. The end of her last hour comes when she sees her husband walking through the door. Kate Chopin displays symbolism starting with Mrs. Mallard’s heart trouble representing her dissatisfaction with her marriage and unhappiness, the open window represents the new life and opportunities that await her, and the patches of blue sky represents freedom and a tunnel of hope to show the emotions and changes of Mrs. Mallard after hearing of the loss of her husband.
The “Story of an hour” is a short story written by Kate Chopin is a very heart tugging story about a woman with heart trouble, Mrs. Mallard. Who had received terrible news about her husband’s passing caused by a train wreck. After receiving such news from Josephine and Richard Mrs. Mallard hurried off to her room to grieve alone, but also to find herself where we see now her feelings have mutated into somewhat of happiness. Ultimately, Mr. Mallard death was fallacy, but it was to late Mrs. Mallard died “of joy that kills”. The short
In the opening of this short story, “The Story of an Hour”, written by Kate Chopin, Mrs. Mallard is identified as a woman with “heart trouble”. Although it is never specified in the story as being strictly physical, “heart trouble” alludes to the emotional distress Mrs. Mallard is in at the time according to the heavy burden her marriage lays upon her and her freedom. After her husband’s tragic death in a railroad incident, Louise realizes that now without the weight of a husband upon her, she is free to live her life for herself and as is satisfies her. By being circumscribed to a constricting marriage and not possessing the free will to express thoughts of her own, she is lead to a unique conclusion of her current condition. Louise is
Mrs. Mallard in 'The story of an hour', is a woman that has had to live her life composed and in control as the wife of her husband, Brently Mallard. Chopin details Mrs. Mallard's reaction to the news of her husband's death with convolted emotions that were considered appropraite and yet horrifying to the reader. At the end of the story, her death came as no surprise.
The symbols and imagery used by Kate Chopin's in “The Story of an Hour” give the reader a sense of Mrs. Mallard’s new life appearing before her through her view of an “open window” (para. 4). Louise Mallard experiences what most individuals long for throughout their lives; freedom and happiness. By spending an hour in a “comfortable, roomy armchair” (para.4) in front of an open window, she undergoes a transformation that makes her understand the importance of her freedom. The author's use of Spring time imagery also creates a sense of renewal that captures the author's idea that Mrs. Mallard was set free after the news of her husband's death.
The end of the story is such a tragedy for me because I feel like Louise and I have such a connection. When Louise went down stairs with her sister and witnessed her husband walk through the door, her heart gave out and she died. This event to me is like finally getting to Gainesville and realizing that my parents were still just a phone call away to smother me. Though I can do what I want, it's nothing like how I thought it would be. I love my parents with all my heart, and Louise sometimes loved her husband. The doctors said that Louise died from her heart disease, "Of joy that kills (16, paragraph 23.)" For me that was the tragedy, that again Louise was misunderstood. Though the events in my life are not as painful as Louise Mallards, we are similar in a sense that all we want is to be free and understood.
"The Story of An Hour" by Kate Chopin reflects the development of Mrs. Louise Mallard's character through the death of her husband; it demonstrates that the true identity cannot be sheltered forever. Among several of the characters in "The Story of an Hour," Mrs. Mallard is a dynamic, round character: a dynamic character usually undergoes some sort of epiphany that changes their life. Social settings in Mrs. Mallard life is the main cause making her repress what she really think and feel. The setting in the story helps analyze the perspective of Mrs. Mallard’s consciousness. The perspective also brings deeper meaning to the character as well.
Unfortunately, her hope for long years and many beautiful spring days was abruptly ended in an ironic twist. Unbeknownst to herself and her company, Mr. Mallard had survived, and within an hour the promises of a bright future for Mrs. Mallard had both began and came to an end. Her grievous death was misconstrued as joy to the others: "they said she had died of heart disease-of joy that kills" (Chopin 471). This statement embodies the distorted misconception that a woman lives only for her man. The audience, in fact, sees just the opposite. To Louise her life was elongated at the news of her husband's death, not cut short. Throughout the story, one hopes Louise will gain her freedom. Ironically, she is granted freedom, but only in death.
Mallard 's death provides the resolution in the story. When Mrs. Mallard 's husband arrives at the house, and she realizes he is alive, she dies instantly. The doctor informs Josephine, Richard and Mr. Mallard: "She had died of heart disease - of joy that kills" (). In "Story of an Hour," Kate Chopin uses three different symbols to portray the idea of freedom. In the beginning, of the story the first symbol Chopin describe Mrs. Mallard as fragile and weak when she states she is "afflicted with a heart trouble" (). The description implies that great care must be given to when relaying the unhappy news. This can be seen when Josephine, her sister, and her husband 's friend Richards worry about her reaction to the news of Mr. Mallard death. Thus, when she is told of her husband death in a train accident, the news is conveyed to Louise gently, "in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing" (). Louise responds instantly, "she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment" (). Soon after she ran off to her room. This reaction could be interpreted as grief. However, her reaction instantly changes from grief to joy as she understands that she no longer has to live for anyone but herself. Chopin states "she did not hear the story as many women have heard the
In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, Mrs. Mallard is a woman living with a heart condition that causes severe stress in her life. When she discovers that her husband has passed away in a tragic accident, she goes into shock and does not know how to cope with such a tragedy. In this story, there are several literary techniques used to display the matter. For example, there is the use of situational irony, allegory and symbolism, and the main theme. Mrs. Mallard lives in a middle-class home, with family and friends around. She has a problem with worrying about her freedom and independence. When she starts coping with the loss of her husband, she soon unearths the true fate of her liberty.
“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...
In the short story of "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin, it opens on the news that Mrs. Mallard's husband, Brently Mallard, had died in a railroad accident: "Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death" (Chopin 1). Not much about the protagonist is known except that she has heart trouble. The tone of hesitation and sadness in the story is set within the first sentence along with an uneasiness about Mrs. Mallard's condition.
Mallard faces an internal conflict throughout the story. She has a person vs self conflict when she is afflicted whether to feel the grief of her loss, or joy because she is a free woman. The major theme in Kate Chopin’s story is freedom. The first scene of “Story of an Hour” introduces Mrs. Mallard who has just been told her husband has died in a horrible wreck. “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was affected with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death” (Chopin). Mrs. Mallard’s sister, Josephine, mindful of her heart condition, breaks the news to her in broken sentences and veiled hints (Jamil). She had to be careful because she was frail. The loss of Brently was her losing her way of life. Mrs. Mallard reacts to the situation showing much grief like any wife would feel. “She wept at once with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms” (Chopin). She rushes off to her room. As the reader, she shows a different side of her emotions. She shows signs of happiness because she has a new-found freedom from her marriage. Mrs. Mallard has had a revelation in her life she feels reborn. Everything around her is giving her a fresh and new start. Winter has passed, the winter is a firm representation of her husband’s death. Spring has sprung. Spring symbolizes her newly found sense of freedom. “She could see in open square before her house the tops trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life” (Chopin). The rebirth is also symbolized by the smell of rain in the
In “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin, readers are introduced to the characters of Mrs. Mallard’s sister and Roberts, her husband's friend, who was the first to hear the news. The death of Mrs. Mallard’s husband left her sister speechless as she tried to find the words to break the shocking news. Once it was out in the open, Mrs. Mallard locked herself in her room, seemingly distraught, but it was later seen that she was not actually as upset as readers would have expected. At the end, her husband coming home leaves Mrs. Mallard as the dead dead one, shocked at the revelation that her happiness of his death was short lived. Mrs. Mallard’s struggles between internal and external conflict are very prominent throughout the story, giving the readers a