Story Of An Hour Dialectical Journal

850 Words2 Pages

When I first saw this title, I thought that it was simply just about a person who had experienced a very eventful hour. Although this title is very simple, it does not predict what is going to happen or have any clues or a double meaning, which I think is really cool. After reading this short story, it is exactly what I thought it was. It was a lady, Mrs. Louise Mallard, who had the most eventful hour of any one's life. From the beginning, Mrs. Mallard is sitting in her living room when her sister, Josephine comes in and tells her the horrible news of her husband's death. An important detail is that Mrs. Mallard has a heart disease so Josephine, her sister, has to be very careful telling her the news. Josephine learned of Mr. Mallard’s death …show more content…

Mallard had died in it. Obviously, after hearing the news of her husband's death Louise was grieving, and she cried uncontrollably. But, then something changed in her mind. She thought to herself, now that he is dead, she can truly be free from the oppression that he gave her. After hearing this she began thinking about freedom, and she whispered to herself “free, free, free” (Pg. 278, 279). Her sister then comes into the room and tells her “open the door--- you will make yourself ill.” (Pg. 279), and she is afraid that she will hurt herself. So, Mrs. Mallard finally came out of her room, hugged her sister, and went downstairs with her sister and Richards. Then, the twist in the story comes. They hear the key turning in the front door and Mr. Mallard walks in the door. He was not on the train that he was always on, so he did not die, and it was only speculation from Richards that he had died. Mrs. Mallard was in shock when she saw her ‘dead’ husband walk through the door, and she died right then and there. The doctors said that she died from the “joy that kills”(Pg. 280). But it seems that is not true because she became glad that her husband had passed …show more content…

There are only four mentionable characters, Mrs. Louise Mallard, who is the main character of the short story. She has a weak heart and had her husband presumably die, but then she was secretly glad that he had died. The next character is Josephine, she is Mrs. Mallard's sister who broke the news of Mr. Mallard dying to her sister. There is also Richards, he was the first person to learn of Mr. Mallard's death over a telegram, he also told Josephine, who then told Mrs. Mallard. And lastly, the final character is Mr. Mallard, the man presumed to be dead. He only appears in the home at the last second of the story and his wife dies because of the shock of seeing her husband. The setting in this story is very small and simple, it is all told in one home, and based on context clues I would assume that this story is based in the mid to late 1800s. This story also only takes about one hour for the story to happen. This author lived in the 1800s, and this story was written in 1894. So, the author uses some older style language, which is more proper. She also has a more proper writing style, which was how people usually wrote back

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