Men And Marriage In Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

The singer, Frank Sinatra, once sang a song that included the lyrics “[L]ove and marriage…It’s an institute you can’t disparage….” However, throughout the ages, both men and women have randomly disparaged the institute through many forums. Author, Kate Chopin is no exception. In her short story, The Story of An Hour, she presents a tale of a woman who receives news that her husband died in a railroad explosion and how she reacts to this devastating news. Concealed in symbolism, imagery, and metaphors, Chopin reveals her own aversion towards the institute of marriage through her protagonist, Mrs. Mallard.

In the opening sentence of The Story of An Hour, the reader is made aware that the protagonist, Mrs Mallard, “was afflicted with a heart

Mallard loved Brently. The narrator elaborates. She loved Brently “sometimes.” Further, the narrator explains that whether Mrs. Mallard loved him “sometimes” or not often it did not matter because when it came to love in their marriage Mrs. Mallard now recognized that the most important part of her life was “this possession of self-assertion.” This self-assertion now consumed her being. It was “the strongest impulse of her being” because now she was “[F]ree! Body and soul free! Mrs. Mallard now wanted her own identity. Entering her room, she was known as Mrs. Mallard. Her identity was through her marriage to Brently Mallard. Through her epiphany of emotions and self-discovery, the reader recognizes Mrs. Mallard to be Louise. She discards her married self and takes on a new persona by “drinking in a very elixir of life through that open

The Story of An Hour was published in Vogue on December 6, 1894. This was a time in history when the roles of men and women were well defined. The men ruled their wives and the marriage; women did not have their own identity or freedom. Kate Chopin was writing from experience. Her husband died when she was in her early 30’s, thus giving her the freedom and independent identity she longed for. After the death of her husband, Chopin raised their six children and never remarried. Chopin portrays Mrs. Mallard as the typical nineteenth-century woman who changes into a joyful freed soul when she is mistakenly told her husband died in a railroad accident. Mrs. Mallard quickly embraces the idea of being free and unlocks herself from her room when her sister calls her by her first name. Louise Mallard gains her own identity, no longer constrained by the bounds of marriage. Chopin makes certain to inform the reader that Louise now carried herself like “a goddess of Victory” because she was no longer married. Chopin’s narrator reflects on all of the wonderful and positive aspects of single life for Louise. Yet, Mrs. Mallard gives little thought or praise for the institution of