Sometimes we all can feel trapped in the day to day monotony of life. In something as simple as an hour that can all change. In The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin a young woman reflects on the information of her husband’s death symbolizing a surprisingly ironic mixture of misery and liberation. The basic idea of this story is the oppression a young woman faces in her marriage. This short but touching story is written about one hour in this young woman’s life, in the last decade of the nineteenth century, where her emotions are far from definite.
The story opens with the fact that Mrs. Mallard has been diagnosed with a heart condition before this story takes place. The heart condition plays a large role in this short story, almost as if it is another character. One would assume that Mrs. Mallard is old because of the preexisting heart problem, but not until the eighth paragraph dose the narrator tell you she is young. This heart condition in a young woman shows the amount of anxiety Mrs. Mallard deals with in everyday life.
A friend of Brently Mallard, Richards is the first to find out about the railroad disaster, so it must be assumed that Richards told Josephine who is Mrs. Mallard’s sister. Both Richards and Josephine went to break the news to Mrs. Mallard. Richards “had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message,” (Chopin 293) which indicates Brently Mallard may not be well liked. The narrator hints about the ending when they surround the word killed with parenthesis, which indicates it had is said but may have not be a fact.
Mrs. Mallard reacts unlike many women do “with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance” (Chopin 293) instead she breaks down immediately in her si...
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...w open window slammed shut. Josephine screamed, showing the reader that Louise has collapsed. Brently Mallard enters the door amazed to find his friend trying to protect him from the sight of his wife’s passing. In the last sentence the doctors represent the undertaker, and the heart disease represents a broken heart due to the loss of her independent life. The irony is very clear “of joy that kills” everyone assumed it was the excitement of seeing her husband that strained her heart, but it was the sudden loss of her new life.
Works Cited
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. 5th Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs, editors. Up Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004. 293-295. Print.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Story of an Hour.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2007. Web. 23 Sept, 2011.
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour”. The Seagull Reader: Stories. Ed. Joseph Kelly. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2001. 65 – 67.
Both Chopin and Deneau put major emphasis on the passage of the story where Mrs. Mallard is alone in her room and makes the transition from heartbroken housewife to joyful, independent and free widower. Chopin says “There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled
Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." Introduction to Literature: Reading, Analyzing, and Writing.2nd ed.
Like in many tragically true stories, it would seem Mrs. Mallard 's freedom came too late. Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour” begins by introducing Mrs. Mallard as a person afflicted with heart trouble. The story builds on this by having Mrs. Mallard’s sister Josephine and her husband Richard explain the situation in a very sensitive manner. Their efforts would prove to be in vain however as Mrs. Mallard then proceeds to emotionally break down. The news shocks Mrs. Mallard to her very core and has her at odds with how she should feel now that all was said and done. After coming to terms with her situation, fate delivers its final blow in a cruel and deceitful ploy towards Mrs. Mallards. And with that, Mrs. Mallard 's dies. In her hour of change Mrs. Mallard 's was delicate, thoughtful and excitable.
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. DiYanni Robert. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1986. 38-41. Print.
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Eds. Elizabeth M. Schaaf, Katherine A. Retan, and Joanne Diaz. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1997. 12-14. Print.
Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." Perrine's Literature: Structure Sound & Sense. 11th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2010. 541. Print.
To begin with the first display of symbolism in the story is Mrs. Mallard’s heart trouble representing her dissatisfaction with her marriage and unhappiness. Chopin lets the reader know in the beginning that Mrs. Mallard is ill. “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death” (57). ...
In conclusion, “The story of an hour” is a clear depiction that women status in the society determines the choices they make about their lives. In this work, Chopin depicts a woman as a lesser being without identity or voices of their own. They are expected to remain in oppressive marriages and submit to their husbands without question.
Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." Heritage of American Literature. Ed. James E. Miller. Vol. 2. Austin: Harcourt Brace Jovanich, 1991. 487. Print.
Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour is a brilliant short story of irony and emotion. The story demonstrates conflicts that take us through the character’s emotions as she finds out about the death of her husband. Without the well written series of conflicts and events this story, the reader would not understand the depth of Mrs. Mallard’s inner conflict and the resolution at the end of the story. The conflict allows us to follow the emotions and unfold the irony of the situation in “The Story of an Hour.”
...Mallard’s death up to the reader’s own interpretation, but it seems that she is trying to secretly prove that women do not have to be dependent upon men. Chopin demonstrates throughout the literary work that women can possess joy without having a man by their side, which contradicts the beliefs of the 1800’s society. Chopin’s use of an ambiguous death and irony successfully create an entertaining story that courageously takes a stand for women’s freedom.
Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. 4th ed. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: St. Martins, 1997. 12-15.
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Eds. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 3rd ed. New York: Pearson, 2010. 261-263. Print.
Mallard. Her self-assertion surpassed the years they were married and the love she had for him. She is beginning to realize she can now live for and focus on herself. The text insists “There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature.” (Chopin 477.) Finally she can live freely and no longer worry about being confined in her marriage and inside her own home. She has come to realization that she is now independent and can think freely and achieves happiness and freedom. She is no longer held down or back by her marriage. She will no longer be someone’s possession she will be free and respected. Her husband Brently returns and he is alive the happiness and freedom she once possessed briefly with the mere image of her deceased husband were quickly torn away. “When the doctors came they said she died of heart disease of joy that kills” (Chopin 477). She was free but still confined without the knowledge of her husband who wasn’t dead. Chopin illustrates at the end that she was free because joy killed her. She was joyous because she was finally set free but she is now once again confined by the grief knowing her husband was not killed