Analysis of “the Story of an Hour” Written by Kate Chopin

Slavery was abolished in the year 1864 when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This was the end of the possibility of human beings owning one another in the United States. Unfortunately this mentality remained in some shape and form, as women were often only considered an extension of their husbands. In 1919 women were granted the right to vote, and in 1960 women decided they wanted to be treated as equals. They subsequently initiated a civil rights movement to fight for workplace equality. Although women became equal to men in the eyes of the law, socially they still struggle for equality to this day. Still in this day and age women face some of the same discriminatory practices that were common place in the nineteenth century. Kate Chopin demonstrates the profound societal weight put on a wife when her faint hearted character’s husband is thought dead. Mrs. Mallard first feels grief for the loss of her husband’s life, then she feels the sweetness of freedom that is now bestowed upon her with the death of her husband. Chopin displays the injustices of society in her short story The Story of An Hour using diction, syntax, and figurative language.

In literature irony, symbolism, imagery and foreshadowing are important devices that create the theme of a short story. Kate Chopin, the author of “The Story of An Hour”, uses many different devices to create the theme of “The Story of An Hour”, irony and foreshadowing. In addition, Chopin uses a straight forward technique to portray the quality of life.

The story of an hour by Kate Chopin introduces us to Mrs. Mallard as she reacts to her husband’s death. In this short story, Chopin portrays the complexity of Mrs. Mallard’s emotions as she is saddened yet joyful of her loss. Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” argues that an individual discover their self-identity only after being freed from confinement. The story also argues that freedom is a very powerful force that affects mental or emotional state of a person. The story finally argues that only through death can one be finally freed.

Richard was too late. “…She had died of heart disease- of joy that kills.” (Chopin, 58) In the short story “The Story of an Hour”, Kate Chopin tells a story of women confined in a repressive marriage and uses a literary element called foreshadowing to add suspense or tension in the story and hints about things that will occur later in the story. Literary devices include imagery, foreshadowing, plot, setting, and point of view. The combination of these literary devices allows authors to effectively convey what message will be in the story. The literary device called Foreshadowing plays a significant role in the short story as well as other literary devices such as imagery and symbolism which combine and create a unique way of how the story unfolds.

'The Storm' and 'The Story of an Hour' expresses the attitudes of two women's rebirth and liberation. These two stories are alike in several ways. Natures plays a major role in both of these women's lives. Calixta and Mrs. Louise Mallard struggle to find their independence and in doing so the endings are triumphant and tragic.

The irony of Mrs. Mallard’s response to the news of her husband’s death lies in the fact that her reaction did not constitute what a common reaction to death entails: extreme disbelief, prolonged heartache, and violent hysterics. When her sister Josephine breaks the news to Mrs.

Kate Chopin was an American author who wrote two novels that got published and at least a hundred short stories. In Kate’s short story The Story of the Hour she uses some of her traumatic event that happened in her lifespan in the short story even though it the story is fictional. A lot of her fictions were set in Louisiana and her best-known works focused on the lives of sensitive intelligent women. One-third of Mrs. Chopin’s stories are children’s stories. A lot of Mrs. Chopin’s novels were forgotten after she died in 1904 but according to Kate Chopin Biography, several of her short stories appeared in an anthology within five years after her death, others were reprinted, and slowly people came back to read her stories.

Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of an Hour”, tells the reactions of a woman who believes she is now widowed. Although the reader would expect Mrs. Louise Mallard to experience only grief and despair, the author hints to the idea that Mrs. Mallard now feels free. Unlike the many other women who have heard the same story, Mrs. Mallard did not react to the news about the death of her husband “with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance.” (15). However, Mrs. Mallard’s grief overtook causing her to weep immediately. Weeping is a reoccurring motif throughout the short story. The motif can be interpreted as either a sense of grief for the death of a spouse, or a sense of relief that Mrs. Mallard is finally free of a binding marriage.

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.

Upon hearing the death of her husband's, Mrs. Mallard went through many different emotions. The first emotion is grief, the author tried to compare Mrs. Mallard to other women that would've responded to the news of their husbands death with "paralyzed inability" ( "she

Mrs. Mallard is described as weak and “Afflicted with a heart trouble.” The statement: “…great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death,” show how the narrator has a tone of tenderness, talking about Mrs. Mallard as if she were a fragile child, even later saying, “[she shook], as a child who had cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.” Throughout this whole scene, the language is riddled with foreboding adjectives and phrases, perhaps foreshadowing her later demise. When she learns of her husband’s death, she weeps “with sudden, wild abandonment,” only going to her room when “the storm of grief had passed.” Then once in her room she sat in an armchair “pressed down by physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.” This statement gives the physical exhaustion the same qualities one would normally give to a ghost, furthering the foreboding nature of the piece.

Throughout the short story, “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin uses imagery and symbolism with several different objects to further the theme and plot. Since the use of symbolism helps bring depth to the story without focusing on too much detail, readers can acquire a more complex idea on what they believe the author tries to convey throughout the story. As Chopin executes an underlying message behind her signs, she also reveals new traits and meanings of her character, Mrs. Mallard. Despite Chopin’s use of several symbols to advance the storyline, the open window exemplifies not only Mrs. Mallard’s realization of her new-found freedom, but her hope and happiness as well.

While Mrs. Mallard is a young woman that is used to her life being in the hands of her husband, she quickly begins to realize that there is more to life than a marriage where she feels confined. Just as quickly as she learns what her new life could be, it is ripped away from her and her life is literally over. Within a short period of time, her world opens and she can view a new life ahead. In “The Story of an Hour”, there are many pieces that are symbolic throughout the story. Mrs. Mallard’s heart trouble, the open window, the chair, and the closed door. These symbols have a meaning to Mrs. Mallard’s story. They all tell what her life is like and what she really wants it to be like, all in a quick hour.

Kate Chopin is known as one of the greatest feminist authors of her time. She grew up around independent, widowed women: her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother. With her father’s death due to a train wreck, and her husband’s death from“swamp fever,” Chopin was left alone to support her six children. According to Nina Baym, the author of Chopin’s biography, influences from strong women in Chopin’s life led to why she wrote about desires, limited aspects of women’s lives, and how women began to challenge the male-dominated culture (550). A lack of men as chief figures in Chopin’s life prevented her from experiencing a tradition of submission by women to men. Additionally, many of Chopin’s works were influenced by realism and feminism.

Structure provides guidance to the reader throughout a short story. Kate Chopin uses structural techniques to enhance “The Story of an Hour” from beginning to end. She follows formal structure to a certain degree, but occasionally strays to actual structure. Upon analysis of the organization of Chopin’s story, the reader understands the powerful meaning that is expressed in such a short piece.