Faith, Love, Time, and Dr. Lazaro

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.

In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, the author depicts how someone can be trapped in an unproductive and unsatisfying reality because of other’s thoughtlessness, exploitation, and domination. When combined with the contemporary society’s belief, presumably the later half of the 19th century, a further understanding of Chopin’s thoughts and feelings can be realized. Mrs. Louise Mallard, the victim and messenger of this story, is the image of such a person. Her relationship with her husband is so oppressive and limiting that even death is considered a reasonable means of escape. The condition of life for Mrs. Mallard is terrible, yet for some reason she doesn’t seem to come to the full

It had been four-weeks since Madame Valmonde has seen Desiree and the baby. As she arrives at L’Abri, the home of Armand and Desiree, she “shudders at the first sight of it.” The house is covered by “big, solemn oaks” (Chopin 422) who’s “branches far-reaching shadowed it like a pall” (Chopin 422). Offering another foreshadowing, it is suggested that the shadowing trees and the branches that cover the house compare to a cloth used to cover a coffin; allowing the reader to envision L’Abri as a gloomy or serious place that is absent of pleasure and happiness--a place that had not had a woman’s touch since Armand and his father returned from Paris after the death of his mother when Armand was just eight-years old.

The plight of women is evident in the texts presented in“The story of An Hour” and “Hills like White Elephants”. “The story of An Hour” is a short story presented to a reader, the story of a woman whose name (Mrs. Mallard) is interestingly only known after the death of her husband. The illustration of the invisibility of women in Chopin’s work is evident by the use of her literary style. In “The story of An Hour”, Mrs. Mallard seems to live in the shadow of her husband, similar to the story line in “Hills like White Elephants”, a story about a traveling couple to Barcelona. Likened to Mrs. Mallard, who yearns exclusivity from her husband, the woman in in “ Hills like White Elephants” –Jig, is repressed and under the control of her husband who eventually convinces her to procure an abortion. Despite the fact that their men appear stifling, the devotion and love of these women to the men is both trepidating and unexplainable. Both women in hills of white elephants and the story of an hour devoted their lives for their companions as they felt the need to be taken care of. This manuscript therefore provides an analysis of the situation of both women.

Chopin addresses emotional freedom through small waves of fear and insecurity which are ironically surpasses by great waves of joy. When told about her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard “did not hear the story as many women heard the same, with paralyzed inability to accept its significance” (Chopin 65) instead she was immediately filled with grief. The idea of her husband being dead was not unbelievable, possibly because she had thought, or even fantasized about it before. Mrs.Mallard

He turned to the streets, begging for scraps of food or clothing, trying to find some way to support himself. Those years of his life had seemed like a dark abyss in which he was trapped. He could see the sunlight above, but he had no way to reach it. He still remembered the looks of disgust and fear upon people’s faces as he crawled to them and begged for help. They would pull their children closer and cross the street as they neared him, or walk straight past him with their eyes fixed ahead, unfazed by his pleas. After some time, he lost hope. As the rich merchants and fine clothed women passed, he said nothing, curled up in a ball on filthy, tattered blankets, starved and cold, flea bitten and depressed. He had feared for a time that he was on the brink of insanity, and had taken to talking to the stones on the street to while away the lonely hours. He remembered hoping he would simply pass in his sleep during the night to escape his never-ending

Memories of the night before became a vivid memory in the recesses of his dimly lit mind, underneath the sunlight's intruding yet blissful gaze and the sensation of silk against his bare skin felt like a euphoria, a river of midnight encased his slender figure and with the scrunch of his refined nose and furrowed knit of his thin eyebrows, he rose from his slumber. Delicate fingertips leisurely danced across the silken sheets which lost its assuaging warmth only to discern that he was gone, Padding through the spacious house far too big for two alone to fill, and too much of a burden for one to find comfort in. To see his lover, clad in a suit that managed to take his breath away immediately

The subject shuffled in, with his countless wrinkles, his hair peppered white and his threadbare clothes. However, despite his telltale destitute upbringing, unlike many other citizens, his eyes were still full of hope and life. Peculiar. Nevertheless, his value to the regime had diminished, as he could no longer contribute through work thus, he was a suitable candidate. As the drug was administered, the subject began to fade out of consciousness, his bright eyes slowly fading away. Breath in. Breath out. Silence. The whirring of the machinery seemed to dominate the silence, the white and sterile walls reflecting our distorted faces. Then the subject jerked to life.

In her novel The Awakening, Kate Chopin is an artist who paints a picture for the reader with every word:"The sun was low in the west, and the breeze was soft and languorous that came up from the south, charged with the seductive odor of the sea." (12) The inclusion of such alluring and dramatic images allows the reader to see, hear, feel, smell, and live in the scene which she creates. Chopin writes to awaken the senses, and her style is one of beauty and uniqueness. As if stroking a brush across a canvas, or playing a chord on the piano, Chopin’s use of expressive, descriptive, and poignant writing is evident throughout the novel, thus adding to its overall effect.

The story settings of Chopin and Poe help to show how repression alters the mind. In Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour,” setting is used to show how Mrs. Mallard’s repressed state of mind begins to flower and grow after she learns of her husband’s death. It is not upon first reading, but second reading, that most start to interpret the settings around Mrs. Mallard while she sits in her bedroom. Chopin writes, “She could see [……] tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life.” It is, as she sits at the window, that she becomes aware that she is free of her husband. Spring is the season of new growth and awakening of animal life. Chopin also writes about how patches of blue sky appear out of the “clouds that had met and piled one above the other.” These two descriptions help the reader see what is, perhaps, going on in her mind. The setting in which Chopin put Ms. Mallard in helps speak

After hearing about her Husband’s death from her sister, Josephine and Brently Mallard’s friend Richards, she grieved and left for her room alone. While sitting in the Chair, she realizes that she is now free, free from the burden and that in the coming years she could live for herself. “She said it over and over under the breath: “free, free, free!””(Chopin 3).

Erik staggered around his vandalized lair, his music tossed and ripped, beloved organ smashed, no knowledge of where his opera, Don Juan Triumphant was now. Possibly sold to another composer, or trashed as he was, forgotten. Now he had gone into a comatose state; breathing but barely alive, he had no care in the world, he was empty, gone. He walked around now in his lair in an almost pace; shuffling through puddles, not minding that it soaked his once best shoes, in his long boned arms he held tightly to his chest, was Christine's wedding veil. The one he had specially made for only her, now it laid limp in his arms, draped over his long-fingered hands, his swollen lips kissed the hem of it, just like the night long past. The night he had made

In “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin describes to her readers a young woman’s response to her husband’s death, or at least his presumed death. The opinions readers will draw from this story will vary from person to person due to personal experiences. The experience and wisdom that I have gained through the trails and tribulations of my life help me to understand, relate, and even despise Mrs. Mallard’s character. On one hand, I feel pity for Mrs. Mallard. I think she felt trapped in a situation that she found to be inescapable. She felt lonely, restless, and did not know how to help herself. Yet, on the other hand, I do not feel sorry for

In the doorway, a petite, hairless dog laid either asleep or dead. Upon entering, an employee asked us to tie a colorful silk wrap around our waists to cover our legs out of reverence. We complied and entered the cathedral. The ceilings were lofty, and the altar was composed of marble trimmed in gold and ornamented with statues of saints and paintings of cherubs. As I was taking it all in, Jose hurried us out. Once again, we marched the streets of Havana in the sweltering heat. The sweat beaded on my forehead as we hiked, for what seemed to be miles, to a cigar bar in the heart of Havana’s historic district.

As her tears fade sitting in her comfortable armchair adjacent from the open window, she stares out into the new spring life. The four seasons spring, summer, fall, and winter are symbolic of the stages of our life. Chopin chooses spring as the season for this story to symbolize the new life that Mrs. Mallard thinks is awaiting her. Her husband’s death is no longer a burden to the life she will be living, but is key to the life she had been missing. “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life.” She first weeps at the thought of living life without her husband, but when she stares out into the world she sees all that she has to offer and that the entire time her husband was holding her back. Now she has the opportunity to live her life to her fullest and is excited with