How Does Kate Chopin Use Symbols In The Story Of An Hour

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.

Chopin employs the use of symbolism to further her theme by using Louise’s heart and its disease as key symbols. In the beginning of the short story, the author informs the audience that Louise “was afflicted with a heart trouble,” which caused her husband’s friend and her sister to try to tell her about the mining accident gently. Shockingly, after her worrying phase of initial grief, Louise becomes joyful and “her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.” Her sister was worried that she was stressing her

While many women fulfilled their "responsibilities", a large number of women responded to this attempt to define and limit their roles with their own literature and work in the feminist movement”(Ewell). So we are now thinking that Mrs. Mallard was unhappy in her marriage because behind closed doors she now expresses how she really feels, it says “she could see in the open square before her house the tops of the trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air…”(p.496). At this point of the story begins to twist, something completely different than the reader expected to happen! So we now come to understand that Mrs. Mallard is actually feeling like new human being, she is being reborn. She is now seeing everything in a whole new way now that her husband has passed she is now free, free of her husband’s shadow. In the same sense we can easily interpret that winter, meaning her husband has died and spring meaning her freedom is yet to come and has now been reborn. In the story Mrs. Mallard is standing before an opened window, an open window may mean several things I interpret it as being vulnerable since she was in despair but it may also symbolize many opportunities for her

In Kate Chopin's short story "The Story of an Hour," there is much hatred. The first hatred detected is in the way that Louise reacts to the news of the death of her husband, Mr. Mallard. Before Louise's reaction is revealed, Chopin turns to how the widow feels by describing the world according to her outlook of it after the bad news. Louise is said to "not hear the story as many women have heard the same." Rather, she accepts it and goes to her room to be alone. Now the person reading starts to see the world through Louise's eyes, a world full of new life.

Mallard’s heart condition in “The Story of An Hour.” When Chopin mentions Mrs. Mallard’s “heart trouble” (P 67) she sets up the end of the story, when that very ailment kills her. The first sentence of “The Story of an Hour” informed the reader that Mrs. Mallard has heart troubles. Her physical heart problems symbolize her emotional heart problems in relation to her marriage. In paragraph five Chopin mentions the appearance of “new spring life.”(P67) This is the new life Mrs. Mallard soon sees for herself. Later, Chopin says, “she was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her.” (P 68) This was an indication that Mrs. Mallard realized that she will have a new, free life. Mrs. Mallard’s words “free, free, free!” (P 68} indicate to the readers that Mrs. Mallard is not sad about her husband’s death, but she is instead happy about a new begins. Her heart, too is all aquiver with a new life and new

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.

By the repetition of the words as a reader we come to understand the meaning behind the story and how Louise actually felt towards her husband. The theme of the story is mainly the forbidden joy of independence. Due to that the story was written years ago where women were very dependent to their husbands Louise actual feelings of joy and happiness towards her husband death was forbidden by society during this

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.

In her piece “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin uses several symbols to bring Louise Mallard’s dramatic hour to life, as well as the themes of freedom and disillusionment that come with marriage and life. Chopin used Mrs. Mallard’s heart trouble, the open window and spring life, and her final descent down the stairs that led to her death to show that Louise’s marriage to Brently was suffocating her free spirit and decreasing her quality of life. These main symbols make the reader feel not only that they are in the room with Mrs. Mallard, but are inside her head and can understand all of her thoughts. The frequent use of symbolism enhances the themes of the story and brings out the emotion and deeper meanings that took place in one life changing hour.

Although she tried to deny the emotion approaching her, when Louise looks out the open window she experiences a feeling of liberation. Chopin describes the liberation of the window by saying, “she could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life” (236). While looking outside of the window, Mrs. Mallard relates to nature’s new spring life as she now experiences new emotions of freedom from her marriage. Since Mr. Mallard’s death ends the confinement Mrs. Mallard feels, the open window demonstrates her now free, open life full of new opportunities. As Wimmer states in his article, “this 'openness,' then, is really itself a symbol of the boundless possibilities Louise can experience with her newfound independence.” She realizes she can live her

The beginning of the story sets the theme for the whole story. We are told about the heart condition that inflicts Louise. This is significant throughout the story. The heart condition is a symbolic way of describing her thoughts of oppression she felt about her marriage. She was trapped and isolated by the marriage. She felt the need to hide these feelings. Women of her era were supposed to be home and under their husbands command. The story has her going through this journey privately. That is significant in the fact that now in her husband’s passing, she will be alone. She will need to work through things by herself. She will be able to go through the whole process on her own, without being judged and persuaded to feel differently.

Chopin's use of language effectively conveys the intensity of the emotions that overcome Louise. Repetition of the word "free" reveals the exaltation Louise experiences in being released from possession by her husband's will. The diction aptly portrays the significance, emotionally and physically, of Louise's transformation. Tumultuously, Louise's bosom, the seat of passion, rose and fell as the "monstrous joy" possessed her. As the elixir of life "courses" through her once weak heart, Louise's "pulses beat fast." When Louise's fancy runs "riot along those days ahead of her", the reader feels the excitement Louise feels. Through the image of Louise as a winged "goddess of Victory", her inner strength from triumph over repression becomes palpable. That strength is reaffirmed in Chopin's use of words that connote potency. Louise has a "clear and exalted perception" of herself.

The symbols and imagery used by Kate Chopin's in “The Story of an Hour” give the reader a sense of Mrs. Mallard’s new life appearing before her through her view of an “open window” (para. 4). Louise Mallard experiences what most individuals long for throughout their lives; freedom and happiness. By spending an hour in a “comfortable, roomy armchair” (para.4) in front of an open window, she undergoes a transformation that makes her understand the importance of her freedom. The author's use of Spring time imagery also creates a sense of renewal that captures the author's idea that Mrs. Mallard was set free after the news of her husband's death.

The author reveals Louise’s despair with the line, “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms.” (Chopin 3). Louise initially showed anguish towards her husband’s death because she never realized how truly dissatisfied and trapped she was in her marriage. She wept in her sister’s arms knowing that was the

“There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory” (8). Louise Mallard, finally has accepted that she is a widow and that she has freedom and is slightly joyful. If only that had lasted long. “Someone was opening the front door with a latch key. It was Brently Mallard who entered...” (8). Brently Mallard was far from the accident. “He stood amazed at Josephine’s piercing cry; Richards’ quick motion to screen him from his wife.” (8). At that moment, Louise Mallard realized her newly found freedom was gone. “But Richards was too late.” (8). Mrs. Mallard had passed away at the sight of her husband and realizing that her freedom was gone. “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease - of joy that kills” (8). As a reader we know that it was actually quite the opposite and Mrs. Mallard died from the fact that her newly found freedom was gone. Imagery is an important part of this scene because the words that Kate Chopin uses and the detail and descriptive words help us to imagine the scene at which this story takes place. Imagery in this scene allows us to visualize Mr. Mallard coming in, with Josephine crying, Richards jumping quickly in front of Mrs. Mallard and Mrs. Mallard