Kate Chopin's The Story of An Hour
In "The Story of an Hour," Kate Chopin uses characterization, symbols, and conflicts that suggest that in certain situations, the death of a loved one may be a blessing. Such situations may include an abusive relationship, or an unhappy marriage, as this story suggests. In Chopin's story although the circumstances might lead the reader to believe that Louise's husband's death would cause her great pain, ironically, when she hears the news, she feels a great sense of relief. This suggests that death may not always cause grief.
Louise's characteristics add to the theme of this story in several ways. One of her characteristics is her youth. This charateristic is important because it is symbolic of a fresh, new start at her life of freedom due to the death of her husband. She has her whol life to live by herself. She will be free to do what she wants to do, when she wants to do it.
Another characteristic of Louise, which also adds to the irony of this story, is her passion for living. She mentions that she will weep again when she is present at her husband's funeral, but she is able to look past that grim moment and look forward to "the years to come that would belong to her absolutely." Just when she is beginning to savor the sweet sense of freedom, her husband shows up at their house alive. When she sees him, she dies, not from the "joy that kills," but because she is heart-broken and shocked at the rality. She dies because she real...
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 ...
She whispers, “Free! Body and soul free!” (Chopin). Though her situation is sad, she does not have a remorseful response. She locks herself in her room and reflects upon her new reality. She instead comes to find a form of liberation for herself from her husband’s death. As she looks out the window, Chopin writes, “…she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window,” (Chopin). Chopin is stating Louie’s newly found greatness for her life. She is now able to live for herself and not behind her husband as society has told her. She can be different and gain more from her life now because she does not have to follow or live for a man, as many woman did in society. She feels exonerated from her bondage, which is marriage, and she now feels she can have a life for herself. In the end, her husband is actually found to be alive as he walks into the room. Chopin writes, “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills,” (Chopin). From seeing her husband, Louise dies. It was joy that had killed her. Readers can easily believe that she died because of the shock that her husband was still alive, but in reality she died from the loss of her new found greatness. The joy that killed her was her own
Story of an Hour – A Big Story in a Small Space. Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour" tells the story of a woman trapped in a repressive marriage, who desperately wants to escape. She is given that chance, quite by accident, and the story tells of the hour in which this freedom is given to her. The story is very short (only two pages), so is interesting to look at as a minimalist piece of literature, and the surprise ending offers an opportunity to look at Chopin's use of foreshadowing.
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.
Can you hear the voices? In a story there is always more that just one voice to be heard. Can you hear them? It is only necessary to look closely and read the text, then you can hear them. In Kate Chopin’s story, “Story of an Hour,” there are four distinct voices that can be heard. You are able to hear the narrator, author, character, and yourself as you read.
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.
Both Nora and Louise's lives have been shaped and molded to conform to their husbands' wishes. At the time these stories took place, it was basically unheard of for women to assert their beliefs or to act upon their ideas. As a result, Louise was forced to succumb to the role of an obedient wife, in order to abide by the norms of society. This is apparent because of the way she reacts when she learns of a false rumor regarding her husband's sudden death. While in deep thought, and staring out the window by herself, she has a sudden realization of complete happiness and total freedom. As she tries hard to repress these fresh, new feelings, she speaks the words, "free, free, free" (23)! These words help the audience to understand the repression she has been forced to withstand for many years. She feels sudden exhilaration as she reflects on what her new life will bring her. She speaks of the treatmen...
Brently opens the door at the end of the story, and Louise is surprised to find her husband alive. She was shocked and died of a heart attack. Ironically, the doctor declares “she died of heart disease--of the joy that kills” (Chopin). In the movie we saw, it was different. Louise was kept in the house because Brently is afraid that she might die or because he is afraid that seeing the world could give her an idea to rebel against him.
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’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.
The descriptions in the story foreshadow the tragedy that ends the story. The author believed unexpected things happen often. In the case of this story, Louise Mallard believed her husband to be dead, having been told this by her sister, Josephine. However, when it is revealed that her husband had been alive the whole time, she is unhappy to see him and suffers a fatal heart attack. While she did have heart trouble, Richards and Josephine thought that the news of her husband’s death, not her seeing him again would be detrimental to her health, possibly even fatal. Chopin succeeded in getting this message across.
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.
There is one clear main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard. The story is almost entirely focused on her, her feelings, and her personal mental journey from being a prisoner and a shell of a woman, living in an oppressive, patriarchal society within the confines of a marriage to the elation of newly acquired freedom and a rebirth of that that, for the first time, belongs to her solely.
In Kate Chopin’s short story, a woman named Louise Mallard suffered of a heart disease. When her sister Josephine reveals to Louise about her husband’s tragic train accident, causing his death, her reaction was bizarre. After she is notified about her husband’s decease, she goes upstairs and locks herself in her room. She sits on her armchair, looks out her window, and fantasizes about what her life will be like without her husband, Mr. Mallard. Shortly after, Josephine comes for her, thinking Louise will get ill about the news and they both walk down the stairs. To Mrs. Mallard’s dismay, the door flings open: Mr. Mallard was alive! Mrs. Mallard was in shock but mostly disappointed, for the future she dreamed of without her husband was ruined, and dies. According to the doctor she had died of the joy that kills. There is no doubt that Kate Chopin included an abundant of symbolic and ironic references in her short story “The Story of an Hour.”
She is marginalize from society by her partner and she has to live in the shadows of him. She is unbelievably happy when she found out about the death of her husband. She expresses her feelings of freedom in her room where she realize she will live by herself. This illustrates that Louise has been living in an inner-deep life disconnected form the outside world where only on her room away from family and friends she discovers her feelings. It is important to mention that even though Louise has a sister, she does not feel the trust to communicate her sentiments towards her. We discover a marginalization from family members and more surprising from a women, Louise’s sister. The narrator strictly described Louise’s outside world but vividly reveals what is in her mind. At the same time she feels guilty of her emotional state by recognizing that she loved Brently mallard sometimes, her husband. Louise contradict herself but this demonstrates her emotional feelings about her husband disregarding her marriage. The situation of this woman represents the unhappiness and disgraceful life that women had to suffer from their