Sense Of Communication In Louise Mallard's The 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:

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

Written in 1894, “The Story of an Hour” is a story of a woman who, through the erroneously reported death of her husband, experienced true freedom. Both tragic and ironic, the story deals with the boundaries imposed on women by society in the nineteenth century. The author Kate Chopin, like the character in her story, had first-hand experience with the male-dominated society of that time and had experienced the death of her husband at a young age (Internet). The similarity between Kate Chopin and her heroine can only leave us to wonder how much of this story is fiction and how much is personal experience.

Immediately after the news of her husband's death, Mrs. Mallard races upstairs into her room where she settles into “a comfortable, roomy armchair” (para.4). The armchair symbolizes the rest from the oppressive life she had and freedom from society's expectations. Since it was tradition for women to be married by a certain age, Louise Mallard must have obligated to marry Brently. Sitting in the armchair, she gazes out of the window and starts indulges in deep thought, which establishes her as an intelligent individual.

This personal confession shows that Mrs. Mallard, though she will mourn at first, now is free to “live for herself,” (228) not for her imposing husband. Before her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard believed she was in a healthy, normal marriage. This death revealed to her how while she cared about her husband, she despised the lack of freedom her marriage had given her. All of the realizations that Mrs. Mallard reaches during her time of reflection shows the readers exactly why she will no longer mourn the death of her husband.

Although some people react dramatically when facing a situation, after reflecting on their initial reactions, their previous emotions may be affected by a previously unknown feeling of freedom. In Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of an Hour”, the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, receives some sad news. Initially, Mrs. Mallard reacts with great sadness over the news of her husband’s death. As the story progresses, Mrs. Mallard begins to reflect on her previous emotions alone and begins to develop her true emotions towards her husband’s death. Finally, Mrs. Mallard realizes that the wonderful feelings of individual freedom overpower her feelings of sadness. Therefore, although Mrs. Mallard reacts with sadness over the death of her husband, Brently, after reflecting on her previous emotions, she discovers that the feelings of individual freedom overtake the relationship with her husband.

The story of an hour by Kate Chopin introduces us to Mrs. Mallard as she reacts to her husband’s death. In this short story, Chopin portrays the complexity of Mrs. Mallard’s emotions as she is saddened yet joyful of her loss. Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” argues that an individual discover their self-identity only after being freed from confinement. The story also argues that freedom is a very powerful force that affects mental or emotional state of a person. The story finally argues that only through death can one be finally freed.

In “The Autonomous Female Self and the Death of Louise Mallard in Kate Chopin’s ‘Story of an Hour,’” Mark Cunningham expresses his opinion on how he believes Mrs. Mallard dies in Chopin’s short story. “The Story of an Hour” was written in the late 1890s, during a time when it was controversial for women to be independent. The ending of her story has created somewhat of a dilemma among readers for years. Some people conclude one ending based on the details and clues Chopin wrote throughout the story, while others come up with a totally different opinion. Mark Cunningham writes a brilliant article on his view of the story’s ending, where he clearly conveys his take on Louis Mallard’s death. Although there are many times when he repeats the same information, Cunningham makes good use of textual evidence and authorities, as well as logic, which makes it easy to agree with his claim.

In the short story, “The Story of an Hour,” author Kate Chopin presents the character of Mrs. Louis Mallard. She is an unhappy woman trapped in her discontented marriage. Unable to assert herself or extricate herself from the relationship, she endures it. The news of the presumed death of her husband comes as a great relief to her, and for a brief moment she experiences the joys of a liberated life from the repressed relationship with her husband. The relief, however, is short lived. The shock of seeing him alive is too much for her bear and she dies. The meaning of life and death take on opposite meaning for Mrs. Mallard in her marriage because she lacked the courage to stand up for herself.

Mrs. Mallard had, "in that brief moment of illumination"(15), stumbled upon a truth: she was now her own person, free from the confines of her husband. She had loved her husband, "sometimes"(15), but that didn't matter: "What could love ....count for in the face of theis possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being! THE theme of the story unfolds at this point: Mrs. Mallard, through the death of her husband, is able to experience the joy of the realization

In the “Story of An Hour”, the main character, introduced as Mrs. Mallard, is traditional good girl that gets her first taste of freedom leading her diverging into the path that allows her to be free of the subjection she feels, however, these feelings are not lasting as society tries to make her return to her previous status before this taste. From the very beginning, Mrs. Mallard is illustrated as a faint hearted woman that needed to be protected from shocking events in fear of her health. In account of this in a slow way, her sister and her brother in law explains that her husband is in fact dead. Mrs. Mallard listens to this, “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would not have no one follow her” ( Chopin 1). This basically uncovers the underlying feelings that Mrs. Mallard has of having to act a certain way in front of society to meet their expectation, considering that within this situation the her sister is society, and she is the suppose to be a good wife that should feel sad about the fact that her husband has just died. With the way she acts specifically exclaiming that “she did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance”, it infers that she already has understand what the

Kate Chopin's `The Story of an Hour' is a short yet complex piece describing the feelings of Mrs Mallard. This story is overflowing with symbolism and imagery. The most prominent theme here is the longing for freedom. Chopin focuses on unfolding the emotional state of Mrs Mallard which can be separated into three stages: quickly moving to grief, through a sense of newfound freedom, and finally into the despair of the loss of that freedom.

In “The Story of an Hour” (1894), Kate Chopin presents a woman in the last hour of her life and the emotional and psychological changes that occur upon hearing of her husbands’ death. Chopin sends the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, on a roller coaster of emotional up’s and down’s, and self-actualizing psychological hairpin turns, which is all set in motion by the news of her husband’s death. This extreme “joy ride” comes to an abrupt and ultimately final halt for Mrs. Mallard when she sees her husband walk through the door unscathed. Chopin ends her short story ambiguously with the death of Mrs. Mallard, imploring her reader to determine the true cause of her death.

The death of the main character Louise Mallard is a commonly debated topic when discussing “The Story of an Hour.” In Mark Cunningham’s article “The Autonomous Female Self and the Death of Louise Mallard in Kate Chopin’s ‘Story of an Hour’” he makes arguments for the common interpretations of Mrs. Mallards death. He states that “it is critical commonplace” to assume that the sight of her husband alive kills her (n.p.). Even though the story never directly states that Mrs. Mallard sees her husband, it is easier for ones brain to jump to the conclusion that her