“The Story of An Hour” is a very intense and descriptive tale underlining the aspiration of freedom women had in the 1800’s. The story orbits around the news of Brently Mallard’s death. Kate Chopin utilizes the responses of Brently’s family and friends. Mrs. Mallard is put under a microscope to record her reaction to the news of her husband’s death. Her sister, Josephine and Brently’s friend Richards, are used as supporting characters for the deliverance of the news, and consoling of Mrs. Mallard. Kate’s portrayal of Mrs. Mallard’s reaction was an insight to the possible desire of freedom, which women of the 19th century were deprived off.
Mrs. Mallard was a young and composed woman but every human being is a little optimistic for a glimmer
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And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome
Meanwhile, Josephine is being a compassionate sibling, whose is broken up about the worst case scenario. In her mind she is under the impression that her sister is miserable and has locked herself in her room. The little information we have about Josephine’s reaction tells us that she really cares for her sister which can be interpreted by the following,
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door"
Josephine seems helpless and in despair, worried about how her sister may be feeling. What she doesn’t realize is that her sister has accepted the grief and already moved on. When Mrs. Mallard finally opens her door, she ends up being the one consoling Josephine instead of the other way around. The hope of being free gave Mrs. Mallard the strength to face her sister and also had gained self-confidence which is best expressed by, “she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory” in Chopin’s own
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Mallard reactions, I believe that importance of individual freedom is vital in couples of all ages. Spouses should encourage a reasonable amount of individual freedom amongst each other. Obviously excessive practice of individual freedom is also not healthy for relationships but it is still essential in small parts of life. It helps couples to learn new things about each other and thus prosper. If people in relationships keep believing that they have no individual freedom of choice, they will eventually get tired of each other and get to the point where, like Mrs. Mallard, experience joy in the mists of the death of their
Mrs. Mallard, in the story, had heart trouble and was carefully let down when they had discovered her husband’s death. Chopin said, “She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams” (307). Throughout the entire story the reader is lead to believe she is sad over her husband’s death; when in reality she feels free again and she cries tears of joy. The story continues to tell the reader about Mrs. Mallard’s grievance, “She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she had saw beyond that bitter moment a long with love upon her fixed and gray and dead. But her absolutely” (Chopin 307). Mrs. Mallard looked forward to being free from her husband even though she loved him sometimes. She kept whispering, “free! Body and soul free!” (Chopin 308). As her sister thought she was weeping tears of sadness, Mrs. Mallard was happy. As Mrs. Mallard collected herself, she and her sister walked down to the bottom of the stairs together. The door began to open, it was her husband Brentley Mallard, and Mrs. Mallard passed away from “hear disease- of joy that kills” (Chopin 308). The situational irony in this story is Mrs. Mallard
Mrs. Mallard's confusion begins by her first feeling "sudden, wild abandonment, " but then a short while after begins to have strange feelings of relief.
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.
Mrs. Mallard?s freedom did not last but a few moments. Her reaction to the news of the death of her husband was not the way most people would have reacted. We do not know much about Mr. And Mrs. Mallards relationship. We gather from the text that her freedom must have been limited in some way for her to be feeling this way. Years ago women were expected to act a certain way and not to deviate from that. Mrs. Mallard could have been very young when she and Brently were married. She may not have had the opportunity to see the world through a liberated woman?s eyes and she thought now was her chance.
In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, it talks about marriage and a woman’s life in the 1800’s. This story illustrates the stifling nature of a woman’s role during this time through Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to her husband’s death. When Mrs. Mallard obtains news that her husband is dead, she is hurt after a brief moment and then she is delighted with the thought of freedom. This story shows how life was in the mid 1800’s and how women were treated around that time.
Mallard’s decision of being happy about her husband’s death was very wise and correct because that was a window of opportunity to gain her freedom back. Now she realizes that she will be able to make her own decisions and choices. Even though great care was given to her due to her heart problem, her husband still has controlled upon her life.
Now that Mrs. Mallard has tasted what life might have been like without her husband, the
Mrs. Mallard is an ill woman who is “afflicted with heart trouble” and had to be told very carefully by her sister and husband’s friend that her husband had died (1609). Her illness can be concluded to have been brought upon her by her marriage. She was under a great amount of stress from her unwillingness to be a part of the relationship. Before her marriage, she had a youthful glow, but now “there was a dull stare in her eyes” (1610). Being married to Mr. Mallard stifled the joy of life that she once had. When she realizes the implications of her husband’s death, she exclaims “Free! Body and soul free!” (1610). She feels as though a weight has been lifted off her shoulders and instead of grieving for him, she rejoices for herself. His death is seen as the beginn...
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...
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.
Mrs. Mallard was at first overjoyed with freedom because her husband was supposedly “dead,” yet at the end of the story, Mrs. Mallard comes face to face with Mr. Mallard. A whole new wave of emotions overcame Mrs. Mallard as she laid eyes on her husband instantly killing her from “a heart disease-of joy that kills.” It is ironic how Mrs. Mallard is overjoyed about her husband’s death, and she ended up dying because she found out he was alive instead. Her joy literally was killed, killing her on the inside as
Mallard’s emotions over the presumed death of her husband. The author used both dramatic and situational irony to mislead the reader and surprise them with a plot twist ending. By utilizing both external and internal conflict the author expresses the internal debate of Mrs. Mallard’s true feelings and those of the people around her. The author used symbolism to display Mrs. Mallard’s desire for freedom from her marriage. In the end it was not joy that killed Mrs. Mallard but the realization that she lost her
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...
Brently was dead, that her sister referred to her as just Louise. She suddenly became a person who has control over her own life rather than her husband controlling her. Initially, Mrs. Mallard felt a “storm of grief,” symbolizing the inward sentiments that were seething through her; in any case, as she sits in her room she watches “patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds,” symbolizing a steady move in her feelings. Mrs. Mallard’s “heart trouble” that is mentioned in the beginning can be a form of symbolism. It can give the reader some sort of foreshadowing of what is to come later on. The ironic ending is where her “heart” condition is mentioned again. When the doctor deliver’s the line “the joy that kills” because he is not aware of Mrs. Mallard’s true disappointment and despise towards the man that she thought was dead. The limitation helps better express the themes of the story because being such a short story requires a limited description of Mrs. Mallard’s surroundings. This makes her life seem truly empty and isolated on the inside. The limited setting better represents her emotional distress that she is experiencing with her
Mrs. Mallard’s conflicts reflects the situations of many women in the 1800 era. Women in the mid 1800’s that were married, lived under the husband's identity, didn’t have much freedom, and felt like they were trapped in a marriage. In a reading called The Story of an Hour, it described a story of a lady named Mrs. Mallard who faced many conflicts within herself due to being invisible in her marriage. Mrs. Mallard could relate to other women in her time because back in the mid-1800s a lot of women felt like they had to stay in their marriage even if they were unhappy. Also, some married women may have felt as if they were trapped in their marriage, living under their husband's identity, as well as not having much freedom. Facing some of the