Story Of An Hour Setting Essay

Setting is representative of elements such as a time and place throughout the form of a fictional work. Certain moods, qualities of character or themes can be created by these elements. As the plot develops throughout Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of an Hour”, different types of setting are unveiled. This short story is about a young woman’s emotions toward her husband’s death while later finding out he’s alive. The story takes place during spring in the 1890s, in about an hour, and the Mallard’s house. All these characteristics of setting become very significant as the story unfolds.
As soon as Louise Mallard heard the word that her husband perished in a railroad accident, “she wept at once,” and “went away to her room alone” (12). She mourns in the second floor of her home and while take a long look outside her window, she begins to experience a different type of emotion. She remarks “the delicious breath of rain”, “notes of a distant

Upon finding out of her husband’s death, she goes “away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her” (12). Louise gets away from the first floor and goes into her room. It is in her room where she finally realizes she’s finally independent from her husband, taking in her newly gained “elixir of life” (13). She begins to feel comfortable, calm and at peace in her room and gives thought to what the future holds for her. According to the author, Louise has been feeling some kind of “repression and even a certain strength” (13) by her marriage but she hasn’t realized it until this point in time. All these newly found emotions are contrasted once her sister Josephine comes and tells her to leave the room, which by the time she does, she goes downstairs and is shocked by her husband’s arrival and dies shortly after (14). The floors of the house represent Louise’s personality shown in her approaches toward her own