Many writers have writer’s block, and many have a lot to say. Writers may use their own experiences to influence their work. It could be about their lives, traumatic or happiness. Kate Chopin, raised in a household dominated by women, used the 19th century Victorian Age and used her own life experiences to express her feminist views in stories like "The Story of an Hour". We see how Kate showed her life and time period in this short story.
Katherine O’Flaherty, known as Kate Chopin, was born on February 8, 1850, in
St. Louis, Missouri. Kate was the second child of Thomas O’Flaherty and Eliza Faris.
Her father, Thomas, enrolled her in a Catholic girl school, Academy of the Sacred Heart, where she received an education from nuns. Her father worked on the Pacific Railroad.
In 1855, her
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With the writing, it was a way to support her 6 children and herself. Kate’s losses only made her stronger. She has some negative towards some of her novels and a lot of positiveness to her writings. One day Kate spends her day at the St.
Louis World’s Fair and suffers from a severe headache. She is diagnosed with a cerebral hemorrhage. Kate dies on August 22nd of 1904.
“The Story of an Hour” is the story of an hour in the life of Mrs. Mallard. Mrs.
Mallard has a heart problem that made Josephine (her sister) and Richard (her husband’s friend) go to her after hearing the death of Mr. Mallard but had to be cautious in the manner in which they told her. After hearing the news, she filled with grief, but then later she realizes the freedom she will gain now that her husband isn’t going to be around. Mrs.
Mallard awakened to the fact that she is an independent woman and can live for herself
Mrs. Mallard was when she realized that she was “ Free”. Kate was able to come back from boarding school her father’ enrolled her in. it also kept Kate from growing up in a household controlled by
Why would a married woman go out, spend the night with a man whom she barely knows, when she has a wonderful, devoted husband and child? Mrs. Mallard's cry of ultimate relief and the joy she felt when she learned of her husband's deathis intolerable.
...opin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." In Literature and Its Writers: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ann Charters and Samuel Charters, Eds. Boston: Bedford Books, 1997. 158-159.
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.
Mallard is excitable. This trait allows Mrs. Mallard to focus on what is good regardless of how bad things may initially appear. Although being easily excitable may not always be the best trait to have, it certainly came in handy when Mrs. Mallard has needed to cheer herself up. The following is an excerpt that surely describes the role Mrs. Mallards excitability plays in the story, “When she abandoned herself a little whispered word...and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body” (Chopin 2). Mrs. Mallard responds suddenly to her realization. She has little control as she whispers the word “free”. Mrs. Mallard is brought aback by her own words and yet she suddenly begins to pep up. Mrs. Mallard’s excitability is what ultimately turns the situation around. She begins to focus on the good even though she knows the bad. Although in a horrendous situation, Mrs. Mallard was able to cheer herself up due to how easily excitable she
...d not passed was to overbearing for her. Her husband Brently was alive and although, Mrs. Mallard was free so was he. Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, provides more than an unhappy marriage, it delivers her ideas on marriage, love and a woman independence from a structure of male dominance. Many would still describe Mrs. Mallard as a selfish, lonely, and sympatric wife, again, there is a disconnect between the outer world and her introverted self. Some of her emotions are described as monstrous; she is
This was her first response to the news of his death. She would not had grieved over someone she did not love. Even in the heat of her passion she thinks about her lost love.
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.
Another example of how Mrs. Mallard was more uplifted than brought down by the news of her husband?s death is the description of the window. As Mrs. Mallard looks out Chopin explains ?she could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all a quiver with new life?. This is telling the reader about the new life that Mrs. Mallard can see in the distance that symbolizes the new life she saw that lay ahead of her now that she was free of her husband. This thought being supported by Hicks in saying "The revalation of freedom occurs in the bedroom"
The story begins on a very sad note especially in the eyes of a reader. Mrs. Mallard is said to have a “heart
she will never be free. This is too much for Mrs. Mallard to handle. Life had been grim
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. Frank Norris comments that realism is the “smaller details of every-day life, things that are likely to happen between lunch and supper, small passions, restricted emotions…” (1741). “A Story of an Hour” tells the tale of an unhappy married woman which is not an unrealistic or extreme occurrence. Chopin conveys in her short story the feeling of marriage as an undesired bondage to some married women in the nineteenth century.
Most women in Mrs Mallard’s situation were expected to be upset at the news of her husbands death, and they would worry more about her heart trouble, since the news could worsen her condition. However, her reaction is very different. At first she gets emotional and cries in front of her sister and her husbands friend, Richard. A little after, Mrs. Mallard finally sees an opportunity of freedom from her husbands death. She is crying in her bedroom, but then she starts to think of the freedom that she now has in her hands. “When she abandoned herse...
Setting exists in every form of fiction, representing elements of time, place, and social context throughout the work. These elements can create particular moods, character qualities, or features of theme. Throughout Kate Chopin's short story "The Story of an Hour," differing amounts and types of the setting are revealed as the plot develops. This story deals with a young woman's emotional state as she discovers her own independence in her husband's death, then her "tragic" discovery that he is actually alive. The constituents of setting reveal certain characteristics about the main character, Louise Mallard, and are functionally important to the story structure. The entire action takes place in the springtime of a year in the 1890s, in the timeframe of about an hour, in a house belonging to the Mallards. All of these aspects of setting become extremely relevant and significant as the meaning of the story unfolds.
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.
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.