Defying Stereotypes

Mrs. Mallard and Mrs. Sommers have a fair share of intemperance. Mrs. Mallard has come to the realization that the death of her husband is not only a tragic occurrence, but also a beneficial cutting of her previously binding marital ties. The crisis of her grief has given her new insight on her life, and Mrs. Mallard understands that her marriage has limited her independence and freedom. Due to this realization she immediately forgets about the accident and starts to think about her freedom: ““Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering” (paragraph 14). It is only an hour after Mrs. Mallard has received the bitter news of her husband’s death. Considering that her husband is gone, instead of mourning, she is overwhelmed with the freedom she

This personal confession shows that Mrs. Mallard, though she will mourn at first, now is free to “live for herself,” (228) not for her imposing husband. Before her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard believed she was in a healthy, normal marriage. This death revealed to her how while she cared about her husband, she despised the lack of freedom her marriage had given her. All of the realizations that Mrs. Mallard reaches during her time of reflection shows the readers exactly why she will no longer mourn the death of her husband.

Louise Mallard is the protagonist of The Story of an Hour. The entire story is about her preservation. Chopin portrays Mrs. Mallard as a woman who is in deep suffering. She is not only suffering from a marriage she is not happy with, but she is also suffering from her medical condition. As if she had not suffered enough, she also puts a threat to her own life. We see this when Josephine is knocking on her door while she refuses to open it (Chopin). What is unknown to Josephine however is that her sister is in fact not suffering but savoring the moment.

In this reading, the narrator talks about the reaction of Mrs. Millard who had heart problems, when she notices of her husband´s death. Louise Mallard is at home with her sister Josephine, when they hear of a rain accident; then Josephine tells Louise that her husband has been killed it in the accident.

The story continues to reveal a conflict Mrs. Mallard may have had in the relationship with her husband. Though she speaks about him lovingly and knows that he loved her, there is something deeper that is brought to the surface in

At the beginning of the story no one wished to tell Mrs. Mallard about the death of her husband due to her heart condition. Her heart trouble is a symbol for the way she feels crushed or hurt by her marriage. During this time period women were expected to live under the control of their husbands, so while being married to Brently, she begins to lose her identity. In the story, she is only referred to as Mrs. Mallard she isn’t referred to as Louise until after her husband’s death. She is an accessory to her husband is forced to live in the shadow of her husband and as a result of this she has lost herself over the years. Louise’s character is used as a symbol to represent the women of this time period and show the sacrifices they make for their husbands and the troubles that come along with the inequalities they experience in marriage.

This newfound freedom is in effect a new motivation for Louise. Before experiencing such freedom, Louise was petrified of the thought of life being long; now however, she felt herself wishing, even praying for life to be long. This is evidenced with the following quote, "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." (15). This depicts an ever embracing Louise, finally liberated of the powerful institution of marriage. What is more, this quote serves to further support the idea that Louise indeed felt trapped, she was unhappy and yet, the thought of her husband dying hadn't crossed her mind, only the relief from her own passing was her wish.

Mallard’s is obviously pretty bad if extreme care must be taken in order to break the news to her. What would have happened to Mrs. Mallard if she was not told about the death gently? The author uses foreshadowing in this scene because she in hinting at what Mrs. Mallard’s heart problem might do to her at the end of the story, and it ends the story in a full circle by making the mention of her heart problem in the beginning of the story more relevant.

Louise falls, subbing, into her sister's arms, then retreats upstairs to her room. Josephine, who asks Louise to give her access, would be stunned on the off chance that she recognized what considerations were hustling through her sister mind. Louise has cherished her significant other, who has, thusly, adored her, and treated her compassionate, yet his passing does not squash her, nor does her appearance make her wiped

Louise wants to live her own life, she wants to be her own person but she cannot because of the restrictions her husband and even her sister put on her. Louise has a heart condition and that along with her husband stop her from living freely and doing what she wants. She cannot divorce her husband because women in this time were supposed to have a husband, they were thought of as lesser. Women were seen as feeble and weaker than men in the late 19th century. When Louise realizes the silver lining of her husband’s death means she can finally be free of her oppression she is overrun with joy.

It seems as if she is displaying her “sorrows” front of the people. Soon after, she isolated herself, “There stood, facing the open window….She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless”. (Chopin, 115) At this point Louise is taking in all of the news about her husband’s death, which is probably something she has been waiting to hear for years.

In "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin, there are many different themes that depicts the relationship between Mr. And Mrs. Mallard throughout the story. These themes such as freedom, confinement, loss of self, escape and alienation. These themes shows the life of a woman's life in the mid 1800's, irony and marriage. The apparent death of Mrs. Mallard's husband shows us that she was living a life without freedom, suggesting that marriage in any form is confining.

In addition to the theme of individualism, Chopin's use of the oxymoron "monstrous-joy" in Louise's reaction of gaining self-possession, implies that she is not conformed to the typical ideals of a wife, or woman, in this time period. Women generally sought motherhood and marriage, to which Louise shows dislike for. In response to Brently's return, Louise dies; the reader is given this information on her death, "When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease-of joy that kills" (Chopin 41). While the other characters of the story believe she dies of joy from seeing her husband, the reader knows that it is quite, in fact, the other way around; in that, she has just had this beautiful feeling of freedom stripped out of her grasp. The walls that which have confined her were broken and rebuilt within a matter of minutes.

While Mrs. Mallard remembers Mr. Mallard as a kind and tender man who loved her, she also viewed him as the oppression that marriage put upon women and men. While Mr. Mallard was kind and loving to his wife, he was also controlling and overbearing. Josephine, Mrs. Mallard’s sister and Richards, Mr. Mallard’s friend is there to break the news of Mr. Mallard’s death. Richards has learned of Mr. Mallard’s death at the newspaper office, not wanting to believe the information that was received, Richards waited for the new to be delivered for a second time before enlisting the help of Josephine. They are both there to support Mrs. Mallard and their support shows that they care for Mr. and Mrs. Mallard.

In the short story "The Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin, the author, presents the reader with an obscure view of marriage. Chopin's main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard, experiences the excitement of freedom instead of the devastation of loneliness after she receives the news of her husband's death. Mrs. Mallard disturbingly finds out that Brently, her husband is still alive. She know knew that her only chance at freedom is gone. The disappointment instantly kills Mrs. Mallard. Published in the late 1800s, the overbearing nature of marriage presented in "The Story of an Hour" may very well reflect, but not restricted to, that era.