Historical Interpretation In Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

1018 Words3 Pages

“The story of an hour” is a short story written by Kate Chopin on 1894. It narrates the story of a woman called Louise who was married to a man called Brently Mallard. A friend of Mr. Mallard arrived to the house afraid of telling her some terrible news about her husband. Apparently he was involved on a train crash and this friend knew about the ill heart condition of Mrs. Mallard. Both her sister and her husband’s friend were aware that the news about Brently’s death could be mortal for Louise, and they did not know how to tell her the outcome of this terrible accident.
When they finally told her, she reacted as a regular wife would react. She locked herself on a room thinking about how terrible this was, but them she realized this was not that bad as it seemed. After a few minutes she understood that her husband’s death …show more content…

To answer this question we must analyze the historical context in which this story was written. It was 1894 when Kate Chopin wrote the short story. Over the time, females have suffered the consequences of a wide range of discriminations and cultural prototypes. Around the 1800’s wives were nothing, but an ornament. They were supposed to be in the house and take care of the children and the husband. They had not voice when a decision needed to be make. They were a simple requirement to meet the standards set by society.
Given these points, we can infer the idea that this cannot be life. It is impossible to feel happy under an environment like this. All human beings wish to feel loved and important. It is clear that she was not the most relevant piece of the relationship, and that she was over there only because she was supposed to stay next to him since he was her husband. The society had already set the path that all marriage should follow not paying attention to the most important fact, which is that both, the woman and the man, must feel

Show More
Related

  • Rough Draft Of The Story Of An Hour

    384 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Story of an Hour is a short story of Ms. Mallard, a woman with a heart condition who receives short term good news. Chopin uses contrast between independence, marriage, and gender to show how hidden emotions can effect a woman’s actions in the time period where women did not have much power or right to speak what came to their mind.

    Read More

  • Men And Marriage In Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

    939 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Story of An Hour was published in Vogue on December 6, 1894. This was a time in history when the roles of men and women were well defined. The men ruled their wives and the marriage; women did not have their own identity or freedom. Kate Chopin was writing from experience. Her husband died when she was in her early 30’s, thus giving her the freedom and independent identity she longed for. After the death of her husband, Chopin raised their six children and never remarried. Chopin portrays Mrs. Mallard as the typical nineteenth-century woman who changes into a joyful freed soul when she is mistakenly told her husband died in a railroad accident. Mrs. Mallard quickly embraces the idea of being free and unlocks herself from her room when her sister calls her by her first name. Louise Mallard gains her own identity, no longer constrained by the bounds of marriage. Chopin makes certain to inform the reader that Louise now carried herself like “a goddess of Victory” because she was no longer married. Chopin’s narrator reflects on all of the wonderful and positive aspects of single life for Louise. Yet, Mrs. Mallard gives little thought or praise for the institution of

    Read More

  • Constant Pain

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...opin’s idea in each story was very contradictory. At first the women were almost held captivate and dissolved of happiness in their marriages, but without a man in their lives they almost become nonexistent. In each of the women’s lives they are looking for attention, lust, and freedom. Once each woman is given all or one of those things, she may enjoy them for a moment and then her victory is snatched away in a flash.

    Read More

  • Characters In Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

    836 Words  | 2 Pages

    In many short stories, characters face binding situations in their lives that make them realize more about themselves when they finally overcome such factors. These lively binding factors can result based on the instructions imposed by culture, custom, or society. They are able to over come these situations be realizing a greater potential for themselves outside of the normality of their lives. Characters find such realizations through certain hardships such as tragedy and insanity.

    Read More

  • Analysis of The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

    805 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Loss And Death In Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

    1173 Words  | 3 Pages

    As the title puts it, “The Story of an Hour” takes place in the span of an hour. The title of the story also shows the possibility of occurrences within a single hour. This story is mostly centered around one woman, Louis Mallard. In conventional circumstances, death brings sorrow, grief, seclusion, guilt, regrets, along with other feeling depending on the cause of death. In “The Story of an Hour”, sorrow and grief are a product of the recent happenings, however, these feelings are coupled with joy and independence. Kate Chopin uses this story to convey death as a joyful circumstance whereas conventionally it is portrayed as sorrowful.

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis Of Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

    720 Words  | 2 Pages

    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. In the story "The Story of an Hour," Kate Chopin reveals the power of freedom through the use of diction, point of view, and setting.

    Read More

  • Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour

    394 Words  | 1 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Identity In The Story Of An Hour

    1157 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kate Chopin’s short story "The Story of an Hour," utilizes superb symbolism and elucidating points of interest with a specific end goal to differentiation Mrs. Mallard 's everyday and dreary life. Chopin utilizes symbolism and expressive subtle elements to differentiate the rich conceivable outcomes for which Mrs. Mallard longs with the dull reality of her regular life. The main theme of this story is “the quest for identity” because Louise’s sudden self-discovery shows that she had been seeking her own identity in a male-dominated world at the time. Kate Chopin wrote this in the 19th century when males were “dominate” and females were “passive.” Mr. Brently’s "death" was what initiated her “quest for Identity” without him “dying” she would have never thought about how

    Read More

  • Story Of An Hour Analysis

    404 Words  | 1 Pages

    Kate Chopin's story, "The Story of an Hour", focuses on an 1890's young woman, Louise Mallard. She experienced a profound emotional change after she hears her husband's "death" and her life ends with her tragic discovery that he is actually alive. In this story, the author uses various techniques-settings, symbolism and irony- to demonstrate and develop the theme: Freedom is more important than love.

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis on Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour

    642 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Kate CHopin's Story of an Hour

    1273 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour" the author portrays patriarchal oppression in the institution of marriage by telling the story of one fateful hour in the life of a married woman. Analyzing the work through feminist criticism, one can see the implications of masculine discourse.

    Read More

  • Essay on Setting in Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour

    1436 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Story of an Hour

    1193 Words  | 3 Pages

    “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...

    Read More

  • A Respectable Woman Analysis

    1074 Words  | 3 Pages

    The story shows the forbidden pleasure every woman, especially in the 1800s, has: the pleasure of her husband dying. The main character, Louise, shows overwhelming joy at the thought of her husband being gone hinting that all marriages are sexually and emotionally oppressive. That marriage is a binding union that limits one’s personal freedom, even if the husband is kind. Louise can not name a specific way that her husband oppresses her, rather that the idea of marriage alone is what oppresses her. Additionally, Louise’s heart condition shows her ambivalence towards her marriage. The heart condition is mentioned in the beginning and something she always had, but if her heart was truly weak then why did it not stress her heart with pain and sorrow with news that her husband was dead? However, when she learned he was alive her heart was pained with the fact that her newly found freedom out of marriage was quickly being taken away. The heart condition emphasizes about how women truly feel oppressed by

    Read More

More about Historical Interpretation In Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

Open Document