Story Of An Hour Analysis

Feeling trapped or stuck is extremely difficult to get out of. Mrs. Mallard felt trapped because throughout the story, Mrs. Mallard’s house was never called a “home”. House and home may be synonymous, but they have different connotations; home has a more secure and comfortable vibe whereas house is just a place with 4 walls and a ceiling overhead. This house felt empty and lonely and dull and boring. She notes that “in the open square before her house the tops of trees were all aquiver with the new spring life,” (5). The outdoors was full of life and color and expression and action, and she wanted to be a part of that but never attempted to include herself. Because she stayed indoors, Mrs. Mallard, upon hearing the news regarding her husband, sought comfort from “a comfortable, roomy chair,” (4). Despite the fact that she had the company of her sister and friend at the time, she chose an inanimate object to sob on. She felt more comfortable crying on a cold and hard chair as opposed to the warm shoulder of her own sister. Not only was she lonely, but she was trapped in an

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"--which takes only a few minutes to read--has an ironic ending: Mrs. Mallard dies just when she is beginning to live. On first reading, the ending seems almost too ironic for belief. On rereading the story, however, one sees that the ending is believable partly because it is consistent with the other ironies in the story.

“The Story of an Hour” follows an eventful hour of a particular day in the life of Louise Mallard during the late 19th century. Over the span of an hour, Mrs. Mallard receives the news that her husband had died in a terrible railroad accident and she goes through the typical mourning stage that most people do when they find out a love one is lost. But within a few minutes of being alone Mrs. Mallard starts repeating, “Free! Body and soul free!” From this moment she begins to envision a life on her own where she does not have to live for anyone, especially not a husband, she can do what she wants and follow her dreams. She’s more confident and ecstatic about her new life and finally goes to be with her sister again but in doing that, Brently Mallard, her husband comes home and indirectly kills her.

The author shows positive imagery overall which gave a message that life goes on. “There was something coming up to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping keeping out the sky, reaching towards her through the sounds, the scents, and the color that filled the air”.

“The Story of an Hour” is one of many short stories written by Kate Chopin. I believe there are numerous symbols in this story, but the one I think stands out the most for me is Mrs. Mallard’s heart trouble. The first line of the story starts out with “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble.” (Chopin 1) While this can be read as physical heart troubles, the more you read into the story, it reflects on emotional heart trouble as well. If you take the statement by Mrs. Mallard, “Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering, (Chopin 2) it reflects that her heart and soul are free from the strains for her husband. In the end her emotional heart trouble was so great, she could not overcome the site of her husband and the

In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” Chopin illustrates the mood and setting to express how Mrs. Mallard feels after she is notified of her husband; Brently Mallard’s death. Chopin describes different objects Mrs. Mallard comes in contact with in the story to give the reader a great sense of how she feels. The author depiction of Mrs. Mallard portrays how calm she is.

In the book the story of an hour, it starts off saying how Mrs. Mallard has a heart condition, and they tried to break the news gently that her husband was now deceased. This task was given to her sister, Josephine. But, it seems as if she didn’t come straight out and tell her. When the story talked about “veiled hints”, which made me think about undercover meanings, or that she was trying to infer something without coming out and saying straight out that her husband was dead. Her husband’s friend had already heard about this news while in the newspaper office when the information about the railroad disaster was first received. His name was on the top of the list for the people that were killed. After hearing about this overwhelming news, she begins sobbing and goes to her room to be alone.

The passage above describes part of the main themes of the novel. The main two themes of the novel are the actions that we do; shape us and mold us into something different, then what we were in the first place. The second is when an individual becomes addicted to something it takes over that person’s life, forcing the individual to behave and do things that he or she would have never done before. Both main themes are seen throughout the book relating with two main characters. The first is protagonist’s mother, and the second is the main antagonist of the novel. The protagonist’s mother (whose name is not mentioned) starts the book as a normal person, but after she starts taking pain pills; she stops caring about everything but herself. The

Her internal struggle begins by finding out that her husband is thought to be dead. At first, she feels sad. She isolates herself in a room. She spends most of her day sitting by a window. While sitting in the chair, before she dared to acknowledge her feelings about her loss, the book said, “She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her and she was staving to beat it back - she was as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.” This shows she knows that what she is thinking is wrong and she is trying to fight it off but she can’t. Over time she notices everything is happy outside. Mrs. Mallard comes to realize that she could be happy without her husband. She dares to let her mind wander to thoughts of finally being able to think for herself and have her own opinion. She desires to have her freedom but society of this time will not allow it.

Mallard loves her husband but it is not until is she actually alone and away from the influences of society that she is able to actually set and contemplate the idea of self-independence. In fact, when Mrs. Mallard is alone and is supposed to be grieving for her husband it is cut short with a different word, “She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will…she said it over and over under her breath: free, free, free!” (Chopin 15). Mrs. Mallard is actually accepting the idea of her self-independence and the fact that it is scary to her at first is an attempt by Chopin to introduce the concept. It is only after this acceptance and in the comforts of her solitude that Mrs. Mallard is actually able to dance around the room and gain her own identity. It is ironic that at a time when Mrs. Mallard is supposed to be in such pain and trauma she is actually rejoicing to is not to say that she is happy for her husband’s death and that she did not love him but the thought of her own identity and being able to truly love herself without the obligations of

In the “Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, freedom is a luxury that can only be dreamed. The story is set in the 1890's, the Victorian era, a time before the nineteenth amendment, a time when the women suffragists were found in prison as regularly as in the streets. The main character, Louise Mallard, is like every other woman in this time; she struggled to get any freedom of her own. When Louise gets word that her husband Brently died in a railroad accident, she was saddened for a moment, but quickly realized that she was now free. Brently Mallard was in control of Louise’s life, so his death gave her hope for a life of freedom.

Kate Chopin's short story The Story of an Hour focuses on equal rights for women during the late nineteenth century. The Story of an Hour is a short ironic story about a woman, Mrs. Louise Mallard, who had just learned about the death of her husband, Mr. Mallard. Although Mrs. Mallard loved her husband; for they have traveled the world and built a stable comforting life together it seemed, she felt terrified after hearing of the tragic train accident that her husband was involved in. But at the same time, she also has a feeling of liberation and freedom from marriage for the first time. She may finally look forward to her upcoming days instead of dreading them. After later realizing that her husband was

Women throughout history have often been undermined and have never lived to their full potential. In the short story, “Story of an Hour” the main character; Mrs. Mallard displays the ongoing struggles of what women during the eighteenth century had to go through. Men often had patriarchal values and dictated what type of behavior and traditional roles women had to follow that was deemed acceptable during this time. A patriarchal society is as follows, “ consists of a male-dominated power structure throughout organized society and in individual relationships.”(Napikoski) Through the lens of a feminist critic we ask ourselves do Mrs. Mallard and her husbands depiction of a patriarchal society alive during that time affect and entrap her own sense of identity and in what ways is it shown?

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin describes an hour in the life of an oppressed woman bound by marriage in the nineteenth century. It is only when Mrs. Mallard’s husband dies in a sudden railroad accident that she realizes she is no longer tied together by the ropes of man. At first she is shocked and horrified by the tragedy, for she did say “she had loved him – sometimes” (Chopin). However, once the tears were wept, a new bountiful life of freedom was now in the eyes of Mrs. Mallard. Chopin uses imagery, third person omniscient point of view, and concepts of relief and joy in “The Story of an Hour” to convey the true feelings of Mrs. Mallard as she is freed from the strenuous and unjust oppression of women due to society’s expectation of gender roles.