Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

In the “Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, is about pleasure of freedom and the oppression of marriage. Just like in Kate Chopin’s story, inside most marriages, even the ones that seem to be the happiest, one can be oppressed. Even though, one might seem to be happy deep inside they miss the pleasure of freedom and living life to the fullest. Just like, in this story Mrs. Mallard feels trapped and when she hears about her husband’s death she first feels distraught, but ultimately realizes that she has gained her freedom. This news leads her to an inner battle within herself, as she tries to keep those feelings from coming out. The story culminates when she dies of a heart attack, because she realizes that her husband is not dead and she would be returning to her old pointless existence. This story has many great literary elements that keep the story interesting throughout its plot, by using great foreshadowing and symbolism.

In the past many decades the definition of what a marriage means changed dramatically in some areas. For the author of both stories, Kate Chopin, she wanted the reader to get something out of the story. She likes to explore all types of themes in her stories such as, racism, the roles of women, and adultery. With these themes and messages she struggled to have most of her stories published. In many of her stories she passed along these messages through the manner of a marriage. In her short stories “The Story of an Hour” and “Desiree 's Baby” she showed just how different marriages could be as well as how similar they can be. Chopin portrays the lives of the main characters, Louise Mallard from “The Story of An Hour” and Desiree Aubigny

Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor discusses many topics and insights that can be found in literature. Foster explains how each are used and the purposes they serve while providing numerous examples. Many of Foster’s insights can be found in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of An Hour” which was written during a time in history when women were often restricted by society and marriage. The story speaks of a woman who felt freed from the burden of marriage when she thought her husband died, only to die the moment she realized he was actually alive. Foster’s insights about weather, heart disease, and flight that are evident in “The Story of An Hour” greatly influence the story’s interpretation in several ways.

In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, the main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard, is a woman with a heart problem that gets horrifying news that her husband has passed away in a train crash. When she starts thinking about her freedom, she gets excited; she is happy to start her new, free life. However, a few hours later her husband walks in the door and she finds out it was all a mistake. When she realizes her freedom is gone her heart stop and she then dies. In “Desiree’s Baby” Desiree is an orphaned woman who married her loving husband, Armand, and they are very much in love. In Kate Chopin’s short story is says, “"He was reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana?" (24-26). When they finally have a baby, they notice that the child is showing marks that he is a mix of two races. The husband blames the wife because of her unknown past and sends her and the baby away for good. Later, as he is cleaning out their old stuff, he finds a letter that says, in fact, he is the one of mixed race and not her. The husband then realizes he gave up everything he cared about over a silly mistake. Both of these stories show the women struggling in their marriages. It is typical for Kate Chopin to show the dominance in the male characters, especially in the marriages as it was in the “Old South”, when women were meant to serve their husbands. Rena Korb says, “In certain ways, "Desiree 's Baby" is

Kate Chopin’s “The Story of An Hour” was published in 1894 in Vogue, during a time when women do not have any legal rights. They have low education level and have no opportunity to work; what they can do is stay at home and manage the family. All their lives, they rely on their husband. Women at that time do not think about why they should be treated this way; they were being silenced by society. Kate Chopin uses the character Mrs. Mallard as the representative of all women who wants freedom at that time, and she criticizes the way society treats them, yet the difference of Mrs. Mallard’s values compared to society’s makes her become egotistic and her death end up not changing people’s mind of how to treat women properly.

Everyone who reads a story will interpret things slightly different than the person who reads it before or after him or her. This idea plays out with most every story, book, song, and movie. These interpretations create conflict and allow people to discuss different ideas and opinions. Without this conflict of thought there is no one devoting time to debate the true meaning of a text. Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” tells about a woman who is informed of her husbands death, processes the emotions, and becomes content with this new status as an individual person – losing all the expectations that society expected her to live by within a marriage. This story however is written in a way that the reader has the final interpretation of the text. There are many different interpretations on not only the reason for the main character’s death, but also on the overwhelming emotions that she faces.

At the beginning of Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard, suffers severe heart problems. Because of her heart condition, great care is taken when her sister decides to inform her of the tragic demise of her husband. When considering Mrs. Mallards troubled heart, her ailments are due to emotional problems she has encountered over a period of time; she is expected to be submissive, and she is not able to live for herself nor be free. Considering, she married at a young age, she has never had the opportunity to live or be free; thus, any emotional problems remained subdued.

In Kate Chopin’s , “A Story of An Hour,” many questions can be asked with very few answers given. The first that grabs the reader's attention is the wife’s over joyfulness at her husband’s death? Was the husband abusive? Did seeing her husband still alive kill her due to being happy or the realisation that her dreams had been crushed? The author doesn’t leave the reader with many answers to these questions. This means that the reader must draw their own conclusions of what they’ve read. By taking a closer look at the text the answers to these questions can be revealed even though there isn’t a right or wrong answer.

In the short story, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, a young woman named Louise Mallard received news that her husband has passed. Mrs. Mallard’s feeling of freedom is matched by her guilt of his death. Mrs. Mallard had an internal conflict for her desire to be independent vs. society’s role for women.

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin expresses Ms. Mallard’s feelings towards her husband’s death in an appalling train accident. Due to her bad heart, her sister Josephine had to be the bearer of bad news and approach his death gently to her. According to the quote, “ But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought”, it lets us know that she is quite different than other women and that there is conniving plan she has developed in her mind (31). Ironically, the horrific news brings happiness to her because of her new ability to be free. We notice of her changing personality and her broadened outlook as she sits in her room staring out of the window. As she is dreaming of the lively dreams, we see her become more independent as a woman and actually want to better herself to make her happy. It seems that Ms. Mallard has waited for this moment from her husband’s existence so that she can discover who she really is. Ms. Mallard finds unexpected freedom by her reaction to her husband’s death, the reaction to him actually being alive, and in the marriage among Mr. and Ms. Mallard.

In The Story of an Hour the phrase “the joy that kills” ends the story in such a dramatic way. This phrase gives everyone that reads this story a different idea of what is meant by the “the joy that kills.” There are two different meanings that I gain from the interpretation of this phrase. Within the story the wife thought that her husband was dead so she was sad. Though she was sad, she began to think of what his death meant to her own life. With her husband being dead it meant that she could have her own freedom instead of living under his shadow. At the end of the story, the husband walked through the door and she died from “the joy that kills”. The first interpretation I grasped was not the literal meaning, which she was so happy to see

Kate Chopin was American who wasn’t known during her lifetime for her writing. She is now well known for her short stories and novels, she is considered to be the forerunner to Feminist writing of the 20th century. She was married by the age of 20 and had 6 children by the age of 29. Her husband died when she was 32 so she turned to writing to provide for her family. Her mother died the next year.

Writers use imagery and language to create the tone of a story. Understanding the tone of a story is crucial to understanding the story itself. The overall tone plays a huge part in the meaning and how the way the meaning of a story is conveyed. “The Story of An Hour,” portrays a brief moment in a woman’s life. Depending on which part of the story you read, you will get one of two themes: hopeful or ironic.

The story of an hour by Kate Chopin provides many examples of “inside” and “outside”. My first impression I get of Mrs. Mallard when she is told that her husband has been killed in a train accident was normal. Mrs. Mallard had just found out that she lost her spouse and she grieves which is normal in such a situation. But the thing that obstructed my impression of her was when she went to her room. She started to stare out the open window and came to the sudden realization that she was free. “When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" said Chopin.(53) After reading that line it led me to believe that Mrs. Mallard felt stuck in her marriage because after the fact she came to terms that he was gone, she started to feel a large amount joy. According to Chopin “there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought. (53) When she gazed out through her open window, she was seeing her metaphorically unattainable freedom.

Tick tock, tick tock goes the clock. What is time? A second, minute, hour, day, month or year, the list can go on; for time is eternity. As a matter of fact, time is measured and it must move forward. But more importantly, time is the essence of life. The average person considers time as measured and predictable. However, What about the time people create in their minds? Some call it psychological time, others call it time of the heart. Either way, this type of time consists of hope, opportunity and anticipation. Subconscious time is not a cycle, it can move forward or backwards in a flash. Thus, there are no rules to how time is spent in the mind. In the short story, “The Story of An Hour” Kate Chopin not only uses chronological time, she also dives into the psychological aspect of time as one woman’s life takes a drastic change in the course of sixty minutes.