Katherine O Flaherty Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

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

Mrs. Mallard is described as weak and “Afflicted with a heart trouble.” The statement: “…great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death,” show how the narrator has a tone of tenderness, talking about Mrs. Mallard as if she were a fragile child, even later saying, “[she shook], as a child who had cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.” Throughout this whole scene, the language is riddled with foreboding adjectives and phrases, perhaps foreshadowing her later demise. When she learns of her husband’s death, she weeps “with sudden, wild abandonment,” only going to her room when “the storm of grief had passed.” Then once in her room she sat in an armchair “pressed down by physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.” This statement gives the physical exhaustion the same qualities one would normally give to a ghost, furthering the foreboding nature of the piece.

Kate Chopin’s story, "The Story of an Hour," may seem to be about Mrs. Mallard’s unexpected and ironic reactions to the news of her husband’s untimely death due to a railroad disaster. At least that’s what I thought when I read the story. It seemed to me that she led a normal life with a normal marriage. She had a stable home life with a kind, loving husband who cared for her. She seemed to love him, sometimes. She had some kind of "heart trouble" (Chopin 25) that didn’t really affect her physically, until the very end. I thought Mrs. Mallard would have been saddened and filled with grief for an adequate period of time after her spouse died, but her grief passed quickly, and she

Throughout the short story, Mallard’s actions characterize her indirectly. When she is first informed of her husband’s supposed death, she seems to be distraught

When Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of an Hour,” was written in 1894, Kate Chopin was living with her family in Louisiana and was a very independent woman. Throughout the world during this time, women were known to be considered their husband’s property and had to live for their husbands and not themselves. In this story, Chopin seems to explain the feelings wives had about their husbands. Based on this, the character of Mrs. Mallard may have been married to her husband but didn’t actually enjoy being with him. So, when he dies, she feels free to finally live for herself. The open window helps to express the feelings of a new life Mrs. Mallard sees in her future. Throughout Chopin’s story, the symbolic representation of the open window plays a major role in illustrating the freedom Mrs. Mallard began to feel in the story

In the short story “The Story of an Hour” written by Kate Chopin, the character Mrs. Mallard is a grieving wife who pictures her life by herself. While grieving her husband’s death she is thinking about being free and independent. Mrs. Mallard and women in the days where they depended on their husbands for everything, while they stayed home and took care of the house could now live for herself. “But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would be hers absolutely.” (p. 548) She was a sympathetic character who loved her husband, but is ready to be free. Mrs. Mallard’s reactions to Mr. Mallard’s death is justified by the way she grieves for him. I am for her and the way she is dealing with the loss of her husband, even though in the end it kills her.

By all accounts, this is not a typical story of a battered wife longing for freedom from her vindictive husband. A woman does not need to be have a blatantly cruel or abusive husband to feel trapped, or unhappy. She should not need the presence of violence for these feelings to be validated. Sometimes, it is simply the absence of choice. And, for Louise – the main character in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” – it takes the untimely demise of her husband for her to realize her subconscious, intrinsic longing: freedom. True freedom and rebirth, symbolized in both setting, and surroundings, is within her grasp. For someone in Louise’s position, in her time period, freedom as we know it today is

During the beginning of the story, Mrs. Mallard is presented as a fragile, faint hearted, powerless woman. This is shown in, “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the new of her husband's death” (Chopin pg.179 1-3). This story really puts the thought in our heads that Mrs. Mallard is not the most strong minded

The process of conveying meaningful messages consists of not only seeking the courage and effort to do so, but also the pursuit of attracting audiences through different and creative approaches. For Kate Chopin, the famous author of “The Awakening” and “The Story of an Hour”, her most successful approach was to provide audiences with short stories that proposed meaningful and strong messages. However, Kate Chopin’s powerful feminist images that were present throughout her writing has mostly flaunted Chopin as only a “pioneering feminist writer,” which has led to other messages Chopin incorporated in her writing into being overlooked. In Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour”, the short story describes the diverse emotions Louise Mallard undergoes after hearing of her husband’s railroad death. The protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, embodies feelings of liberation and freedom as she said, “Free! Body and Soul free!!” (Chopin) Yet, when she discovers her husband was still alive as he stood in the doorway of her house that same day, her shock overwhelms her and Louise suddenly dies of a heart attack. For the most part, this story has been taught solely from a feministic outlook, but if profoundly analyzed, Chopin’s story reveals that the story itself proposes indirect and subtle themes that reflect the social impacts that the developments of technology and time brought upon society during Chopin’s time.

Author Kate Chopin is famous for some of the most influential feminist stories and novels in the Western canon. “The Story of an Hour” is one such text. In this story, Chopin tackles many of the concerns that are essential to feminism, including the willpower and expression of a woman’s distinctive identity separate from the identity of her husband and the right of a woman to identify and experience her own interests. While there is an aspect of this story that is provocative, namely, that Mrs. Mallard feels excited after learning that her husband has died, the reader can empathize with Mrs. Mallard’s feelings and support her.

Mrs.Mallard is glad to show a desire for her independence as her husband is violent towards her.Upon hearing that her husband was killed in a train accident Mrs.mallard was distraught at first seeing as her husband (as society told her) was her main purpose in life and to do nothing else but cook and clean.This line shows her dismay “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to

Mrs.Mallard is glad to show a desire for her independence as her husband is violent towards her.Upon hearing that her husband was killed in a train accident Mrs.mallard was distraught at first seeing as her husband (as society told her) was her main purpose in life and to do nothing else but cook and clean.This line shows her dismay “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to

The affection that came to each of the characters in this story has had a huge impact on each and every one of them. For instance, Ms. Mallard has already had heart issues which means her emotional state might be different than someone who does not have those kinds of issues. The moment Ms. Mallard finds out about her husband’s death, she feels very relieved, “And yet she had loved him – sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being! (15)” This quote shows that she must have been hiding something from her husband or that she did not feel better when he was with her. Some might say that she should be really sad because her husband was said to be dead, and what kind of person feels relieved? Later into the story her husband walks into the door. The moment she sees him, she has the heart attack and dies. The

The story contains several symbols with the purpose of indicating Mrs. Mallards feelings towards her husband and her life in general. At the start of the story, we obtain knowledge about how she has a heart trouble. Scientifically speaking that would of course refer to her having a poor function-ing heart, however this heart trouble could also be read psychologically, meaning that she has been hurt and unfairly treated by someone. In addition, the symbolic meaning of a ‘’heart’’ is love and therefore it makes sense that the writer chose this disease instead of any other. In that way she indi-cates to the readers that something about her heart is not right; there is more to

Next, Mrs. Mallard was a woman who suffered from the times where women were treated with less value and importance. She lost her own life because rejoice at her husband’s tragedy. Her uncontrollable desire to be free made her become a frivolous woman, who let his personal longing’s end with his own life. When she realized that her husband was alive all his plans vanished. Her happiness was a temporary happiness which lasted less than an hour.