Kate Chopin’s “The Story of An Hour” focuses on a woman named Louise Mallard and her reaction to finding out about her husband’s death. The descriptions that the author uses in the story have significance in the plot because they foreshadow the ending.
This story mainly follows a woman with heart trouble. Her husband’s name appears at the top of a list of people killed in a railroad accident. The story than explains her reaction upon finding out about his death. At the end of the story, her husband (who never actually even knew about the accident) shows up at the door of their house. When she sees him, she has a heart attack and dies.
Chopin describes her as a fragile woman. Because she was “afflicted with a heart trouble,” when she receives notification of her husband’s passing, “great care was taken” to break the news “as gently as possible” (1). Josephine, her sister, and Richards, her husband’s friend, expect her to be devastated over this news, and they fear that the depression could kill her because of her weak heart. Richards was “in the newspaper office when the intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of killed” (1). He therefore is one of the first people to know about his death. Knowing about Mrs. Mallard’s heart, he realizes that they need to take caution in letting Mrs. Mallard know about it. Josephine told her because Richards feared “any less careful, less tender” person relaying the message to Louise Mallard (1). Because of her heart trouble, they think that if the message of her husband’s death is delivered to her the wrong way, her heart would not be able to withstand it. They also think that if someone practices caution in giving her the message, that, ...
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...that Chopin describes her eyes in this story shows elation. The author describes her joy over her husband’s death as monstrous to give the reader the idea that she feels extreme joy over an event that would normally elicit the opposite reaction in a person.
The descriptions in the story foreshadow the tragedy that ends the story. The author believed unexpected things happen often. In the case of this story, Louise Mallard believed her husband to be dead, having been told this by her sister, Josephine. However, when it is revealed that her husband had been alive the whole time, she is unhappy to see him and suffers a fatal heart attack. While she did have heart trouble, Richards and Josephine thought that the news of her husband’s death, not her seeing him again would be detrimental to her health, possibly even fatal. Chopin succeeded in getting this message across.
By contrast, Louise Mallard, the protagonist in Chopin's "Story of an Hour", is a moral woman and loving wife, at least by Western standards. Her life is defined by the accepted social ideal of a husband's will as final. She is so inured to this concept that only upon hearing the news of his death does her true feeling of something "too subtle and elusive to name" (199) come forth. What she acknowledges to herself is that her marriage is not happy for her and she often resents her subservient role and "a kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime".
In Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour,” Louise Mallard, is going through a life changing event that is brought on by the news of the death of her husband’s death, grieves for a very short time and discovers that she will now be able to live for herself. The end of her last hour comes when she sees her husband walking through the door. Kate Chopin displays symbolism starting with Mrs. Mallard’s heart trouble representing her dissatisfaction with her marriage and unhappiness, the open window represents the new life and opportunities that await her, and the patches of blue sky represents freedom and a tunnel of hope to show the emotions and changes of Mrs. Mallard after hearing of the loss of her husband.
In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” allows one to explore many ironic instances throughout the story, the main one in which a woman unpredictably feels free after her husband’s assumed death. Chopin uses Mrs. Mallard’s bizarre story to illustrate the struggles of reaching personal freedom and trying to be true to yourself to reach self-assertion while being a part of something else, like a marriage. In “The Story of an Hour” the main character, Mrs. Mallard, celebrates the death of her husband, yet Chopin uses several ironic situations and certain symbols to criticize the behavior of Mrs. Mallard during the time of her “loving” husband’s assumed death.
To some, the protagonists reaction can be considered mad or may consider her to be mentally-ill because of her closed door reaction to her husband’s death. Throughout the text there is evidence that suggest Kate Chopin created this character to expose the front some women, during the nineteenth century, had to have while being married and when their husbands died. If Louis Millard’s character was honest about her, positive or negative, depending how you interpret Chopin’s text, she would be negatively be viewed by society. Viewing this piece from societal normality’s from the 1800’s or even modern day, society would expect the protagonist to morn his death for an eternity, and possibly suffer. Chopin’s had the ability to divulge the emotion many women may have felt in a marriage and/or the death of a husband.
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.
“Story of an Hour”, Kate Chopin unveils a widow named Mrs. Louise Mallard in which gets the news of her husband’s death yet, the audience would think she would feel sorrowful, depressed, and dispirited in the outcome her reaction is totally unusual. Meanwhile, day after day as time has gone by Mrs. Mallard slowly comes to a strange realization which alters a new outlook over her husband's death. "And yet she had loved him- sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!" (Chopin, 2). The actuality that she finds a slight bit of happiness upon the death of a person who particularly is so close to her is completely unraveling w...
Mrs. Mallard is the example of a typical housewife of the mid 1800’s. At the time, most women were not allowed to go to school and were usually anticipated to marry and do housework. During that time, the only way women could get out of a marriage was if they were to die or their husbands was to die. In that time period, the husband had control of all of the money, so it would not be wise if the wife were to leave the financial freedom that was provided by the husband. This is most likely why Mrs. Mallard never leaves her husband’s death, she is sad at first but then experiences an overwhelming sense of joy. This shows that she is not in a fulfilling marriage as his death means she will finally have own individual freedom, as well as financial freedom being the grieving widow who will inherit her husband’s wealth. In the words of Lawrence I. Berkove he states, “On the other hand, Chopin did not regard marriage as a state of pure and unbroken bliss, but on the other, she could not intelligently believe that it was desirable, healthy, or even possible for anyone to live as Louise, in the grip of her feverish delusion, wishes: to be absolutely free and to live totally and solely for oneself.” (3) Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to her husband’s death is Chopin’s way of expressin...
In "The Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin tells the story of a woman, Mrs. Mallard, whose husband is thought to be dead. Throughout the story, Chopin describes the emotions Mrs. Mallard felt about the news of her husband's death. However, the strong emotions she felt were not despair or sadness, they were something else. In a way, she was relieved more than she was upset, and almost rejoiced in the thought of her husband no longer living. In using different literary elements throughout the story, Chopin conveys this to us on more than one occasion.
Upon coming to the realization that her husband did not die in a tragic railroad incident as she was told by her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richards, in the most delicate manner due to her heart troubles, Mrs. Mallard dies suffering from a heart attack. The doctors claim that the cause of her heart attack was from a “joy that kills”(Chopin, Page 3). Throughout this short story, the author Kate Chopin, focuses on visualizing the emotions and the role that the women of the 19th century had as wives. And so, Kate Chopin shows the role of women and what is expected of them by telling a story of a woman who experiences an emotional transformation as soon as she finds out she is a widow. The emotional transformation that Mrs. Mallard
Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of an Hour”, is about a woman, named Louise Mallard, in the late 1800s who is told that her husband, Brently, has died in a railroad accident. Initially, Louise is surprised, distressed, and drowned in sorrow. After mourning the loss, the woman realizes that she is finally free and independent, and that the only person she has to live for is herself. She becomes overwhelmed with joy about her new discovery of freedom, and dreams of all of the wonderful events in life that lie ahead of her. Louise’s sister finally convinces her to leave her room and come back into reality. While Louise is walking down her steps, her husband surprisingly enters through the door because he was actually not killed in the accident. At the same moment, Louise collapses and dies, supposedly from “heart disease-of joy that kills” (Chopin 706).
Written by Kate Chopin, the short story “The Story of an Hour” follows Louise Mallard, a woman from the nineteenth century who has just received the news that her husband, Brently Mallard, has passed away in a horrific train accident. Immediately Mrs. Mallard is overcome with grief and sorrow, but her mood quickly shifts when she realizes the independence and free-will she will now have. At the climax of her elation for the future, her husband walks through the door. Mrs. Mallard, shocked and speechless, dies of a heart attack. In the short story, "The Story of an Hour," author Kate Chopin utilizes symbolism, diction, and irony to emphasize the effects of Mrs. Mallard's newfound sense of freedom, and how that ultimately results in her death.
Chopin first shows the struggle by telling how Mrs. Mallard’s sister, Josephine, and friend, Richards, expect Mrs. Mallard to react to her husband’s death. Chopin starts the story by saying, “[k]nowing the Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with heart trouble, great care was taken to break her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death” (30). The heart condition introduced in the first line of the story is actually the weakness
...giving it boundaries and distinctive characteristics about the situation. Setting preys upon reader stereotypes and preconceptions about the certain time frame or location in which the story takes place in order to bring out more meaning. In this work, Chopin develops the story based on the reader's knowledge and understanding of a woman's place in late nineteenth-century America. But the specific setting--the time of year and the structure of the Mallard house--also gives clues to help readers understand Louise and attempt to determine the cause of her death. Louise may die of heart disease, as the doctors say at the end of the story, but setting indicates that the disease was not "joy that kills" (14).
I read a story, after I finished reading it my mind was still reeling over what I had just read. Stories like this are quite impressive magnificent; they draw the reader into the story and leave them with a strong impact. How we interpret a text is in itself impressive, as every person is different, every interpretation is too. As I read “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, I could not help but notice that Kate Chopin uses the window to symbolize the future that Mrs. Mallard has been pinning for all her life. Chopin also uses Mrs. Mallard’s heart condition as a symbol of Mrs. Mallard’s marriage. The short story is consequentially the story of an oppressed woman who had to confine herself to the social norms of marriage. Through Formalism Criticism, we will explore the various symbols that Chopin uses to describe how Mrs. Mallard yearns for freedom, and through the Feminist Criticism, we will explore how the institution of marriage oppresses our heroin.
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.”