Kate Chopin's Story Of An Hour

At the beginning of Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of an Hour” the young, yet physically frail protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, is tactfully informed of her husband’s recent demise. Immediately after receiving the grim news, she makes it perfectly clear how she feels about the circumstances. Mrs. Mallard “…wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms” and subsequently isolated herself inside of the privacy of her bedroom. Reflecting on the events alone, she displays a welling of despair; however Mrs. Mallard notices that, unlike her husband, the world outside of her bedroom window appears vivid and alive. When cogitating about her external observations, and dissolving her finite trepidation, Mrs. Mallard comes an epiphany:

Chopin’s “Story of an Hour”, the author goes through the story explaining how Mrs. Mallard was feeling about her husband’s death. The author states, how Mrs. Mallard at one point you could hear her whisper “free, free, free” (353). He states the point of how some people would perceive that she is a cold, calculating hard woman. The readers could be led to believe that she doesn’t love her husband. Mrs. Mallard has several different emotions about the news, she is heartfelt, but at the same time relieved from the confinement that she experiences with Mr. Mallard. The author chose to describe in his writings, how the emotions that Mrs. Mallard was feeling was close to rape. She had no self-dignity or self-esteem regarding the events in her life. She doesn’t disclose how he treated her nor does she name him specifically. But in her words and feeling’s that are expressed

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.

Mallard has a heart condition, which makes it very hard to anyone to break to her the sad news of the death of her husband in the beginning. Everyone treats her cautiously and with care, and they tiptoe around the issue of the death of her husband. When her sister and close family get the news that Mr. Mallard had died in an accident, they take time and gently break the news to her, fearing that any carelessness could be fatal to her due to the heart condition she suffered from. She weeps and cries, then goes ahead to lock herself up in her room. She seems terrified and in awe about something that is about to come to her, which is her freedom.

Anyone who receives notice of a loved ones death is never expected to take it lightly. In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” Mrs. Mallard is informed of her husbands “death” as gently as possible, and immediately she understands the enormous significance this loss will have on her life. Unlike many widow’s, her feelings of utter devastation do not last. Mrs. Mallard’s sobs of loss turn to cries of joy after she reflects upon her own character and discovers truths about her marriage.

Often fact and fiction intermix in stories because writer’s base their stories of real life experiences and feelings. Kate Chopin largely based her stories off of her own life. Kate Chopin spent her childhood years in an alternative and matriarchal Louisiana town with a family that was unconventional. She challenged her nineteenth century sexist society and used her own life to put strength and feminism into her stories like “The Storm”, “Desiree’s Baby” and of course “The Story of an Hour”. She lived with her mother, grandmother and great grandmother who were all widows. She was one of three sisters but the other two died very young. Her father Thomas O’Flaherty was killed in a train wreck in 1855. She was married by June 1870 to Oscar Chopin but in 1882 he died unexpectedly from a fever. Then 15 years later her mother dies as well (According to Jasdomin Rolento, Pace University, May 5, 2008). She had been around death for a large sum of her life and this largely impacted her stories like “The Story of an Hour”, “The Storm” and “Desiree’s Baby”.

In "The story of an Hour," Kate Chopin reveals the complex character, Mrs. Mallard, In a most unusual manner. THe reader is led to believe that her husband has been killed in a railway accident. The other characters in the story are worried about how to break the news to her; they know whe suffers from a heart condition, and they fear for her health. On the surface, the story appears to be about how Mrs. Mallard deals with the news of the death of her husband. On a deeper level, however, the story is about the feeling of intense joy that Mrs. Mallard experiences when she realizes that she is free from the influences of her husband and the consequences of

Within, “The Story of an hour”, Kate Chopin portrays the reaction of Mrs. Mallard to her husband’s deaths a disconsolate then eventual mercurial tone. At the beginning of the story, the mood and tone were despair and disconsolate. Not only was Mrs. Mallard feeling grief over her lost, but Chopin uses pathos to effect and relate the audience to a grief feeling as well.

When one has been bound under someone’s will without knowing, once given freedom one may feel as if they no longer have to answer and or obey ever anyone ever again. This may bring upon a feeling of hope, joy, and or satisfaction. In the “The Story of An Hour” Kate Chopin introduced the character Mrs. Mallard, who was recently given the news that her husband was in a terrible accident and pronounced dead. Throughout the story Mrs. Mallard seemed to displayed many different emotions. Chopin develops suspicion in the passage by using the literary techniques such as paragraph structure, irony, and foreshadowing. Let’s first take a look at how the different structures of the passage really gave suspension to the story line.

Often she had not.” This third-person perspective of Louise (Mrs Mallard) shows how she did not give her all in this relationship and was not how a typical wife was stereotyped to be like during the late 1890’s. She was stereotyped by her family and friend (Josephine(sister), and Richards(Husbands friend)) this was shown through how they had assumed her to be grieving like a typical widow would and example of this is when Josephine is checking up on Louise in her room, and assumes she is in utter devastation when in reality she was dreaming of the freedom she will free in the following days. A line to back this up is when Josephine says to Louise “Louise, open the door!

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

The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin is a short yet complex story, describing Mrs Mallard’s feelings. It focuses on the unfolding emotional state of Mrs Mallard after the news of her husbands death, and has overflowing symbolism and imagery. It is an impressive literary piece that touches the readers’ feelings and mind and allows the reader to have a connection to Mrs Mallard’s emotional process. Although the story is short, it is complete with each word carrying deep sense and meaning. It is written in the 19th century, a time that had highly restrictive gender roles that forbade women to live as they saw fit. Mrs Mallard experiences something not everyone during this time has the luck to have; the happiness of freedom that the reader only

In the short story The Story of an Hour, Chopin opens with her main character Mrs. Mallard and tells the reader a significant fact about this character. Right away the reader can tell the point of view is third person omniscient, which will end up being a key element of this story. Chopin sets the story in one place, the main characters house, but she opens it up by giving descriptions of the sky. In this story, the reader is told about a woman who finds out her husband is dead. Because the author tells us Mrs. Mallard has a heart trouble in the first line, it is expected that something later in the story will have something to do with this. It is then found out after reading, because of the descriptive and detailed style of writing, that this

Mrs. Mallard suffers from a heart condition; thus, her sister Josephine gently and carefully breaks the news of Mr. Mallard’s death. Richards, a close friend of Mr. Mallard, is the first to discover the news of Mr. Mallard’s railroad tragedy. When hearing the news, Mrs. Mallard collapses in grief into her sister’s arms and retreats upstairs into her room. While her sister begs Mrs. Mallard to open the door, Mrs. Mallard reflects on her feelings. She sinks into an armchair facing an open window noticing the “new spring life, the delicious breath of rain in the air, the peddler in the street crying his ware, the notes of a distant song which someone was singing and countless sparrows twittering in the eaves” (Chopin 556). This signifies a new blossoming life: a life that she would live for herself. Although her husband is loving, and she knows that she will weep again when she sees his dead body, she realizes how confined marriage is for her. Robert Evans, author of “Literary Contexts in Short Stories: Kate Chopin's “‘The Story of an Hour,’” claims that Mrs. Mallard looks forward to a bright future rather than a dreadful life. She becomes aware that she must live alone rather than being imprisoned by marriage. As these thoughts circulate in her mind, she keeps whispering, “Free! Body and soul free!” (Chopin 557).By conveying the story through Mrs. Mallard’s thoughts, Chopin portrays how women actually feel compared to what they present in society. While Josephine and society expect Mrs. Mallard to be grieving, Mrs. Mallard is actually looking forward to the days ahead of her: “Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own” (Chopin 557). When Mrs. Mallard discovers that the news of her husband’s death was inaccurate, Mrs. Mallard dies from a heart attack after seeing her husband alive. The

There are myriad levels of symbolism which Chopin invokes in order to express the principle theme of this work. The very fact that the protagonist of the story, Mrs. Mallard, learns that her husband has died symbolizes the fact that she is now free from his will and influence upon her life. However, Chopin chooses to express this notion most efficaciously by expressing Mrs. Mallard's newfound liberty or what she believes is her newfound liberty through the symbolism of spring, as the