Story Of An Hour Analysis Essay

Chopin expertly adds irony to the story by stating, “When the doctors came they say she had died from heart disease - of joy that kills” (8). However, the readers know that she died because of the sudden loss of her new found freedom. This develops irony because the characters didn’t know the excitement she felt when her spouse “passed away”, but the readers know she rejoiced in her freedom. From the characters point of view, it may seem she died because she was so excited her husband returned safely. After Mrs. Mallard barracked herself in her room, it is stated that she “Abandoned herself” and then started chanting “Free! Free! Free!” (7). This displays her excitement towards her husband's death. However, the other characters are fearing for her health since they believe she is not strong enough to get through the

Death can cause a person joy instead of sorrow or grief. “The Story of an Hour,” a perfect example, was written by Kate Chopin. “The Story of an Hour” is a short story that shows how the main character, Louise Mallard, views her marriage and the death of her husband. Mrs. Louise Mallard brings several different themes into the story that may be viewed very differently by different readers. The two themes, confinement and freedom, show how Mrs. Mallard feels before and after learning the news of her husband’s death. “The Story of an Hour” shows how several incidents can occur in just one hour. Set in the home of Mrs. Mallard, the story originates when Mrs. Mallard is told by her sister, Josephine, about her husband’s death. Normally, when a person’s spouse passes away, the passing brings grief, regret, and sorrow. However, Mrs. Mallard feels as if she is confined to her husband; therefore, she is now free and can enjoy life by herself. Chopin uses Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to illustrate how confinement, freedom, and irony can occur from marriage and death.

Mallard is sitting in her room her sister Josephine is knocking on the door. Josephine begs her sister to open the door thinking she is going to make herself sick. She tells Josephine to go away, while her thoughts are still running about the days ahead of her. “It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.” ( 548) As she opened the door to the room her sister was standing there and clasped her waist and they both headed to the stairs. Richard who is Mr. Mallard’s friend was standing at the bottom of the stairs. While they are all standing at the stairs the front door opens and Mr. Mallard comes walking in with his grip-sack and umbrella. He was nowhere near the accident and did not even know that there was one. “He was standing there amazed by Josephine’s cry; then at Richards’ quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife". ( 548) He was too late. With Mrs. Mallard’s heart condition and the joys of being free only lasted a short while. When seeing her husband walk through the door, it became too much for her to bare and it killed

Louise Mallard is the protagonist of The Story of an Hour. The entire story is about her preservation. Chopin portrays Mrs. Mallard as a woman who is in deep suffering. She is not only suffering from a marriage she is not happy with, but she is also suffering from her medical condition. As if she had not suffered enough, she also puts a threat to her own life. We see this when Josephine is knocking on her door while she refuses to open it (Chopin). What is unknown to Josephine however is that her sister is in fact not suffering but savoring the moment.

Mrs. Mallard finds out that her husband has just died, "she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment." The character of Josephine is there to represent her conflict against society. As the story starts up, she as Mrs. Mallard turns to her sister Josephine and weeps in her arms after hearing the sudden news of her husband's death. This is her acknowledging the grief that society expects her to feel. Her openness to Josephine represents the acceptance that came with acting in accordance with what society expected. Mrs. Mallard displays her strength, “When the storm of grief … away to her room alone.” The fact that she does not bring Josephine with her implies the conflict that is about to take place." Josephine is the social norms, assuming that she is weak without her husband by her side. Mrs. Mallard's isolation from this assumption represents that she has strength and can stand on her own. This expected strength is confirmed as Chopin writes, "Josephine was kneeling … lips to the keyhole”, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! … before you make yourself ill." The closed door to Josephine shows her decision to close her

Josephine lends significance to the story because she serves to illustrate symbolism. A powerful symbolic detail in this story, one that is easily overlooked, but is of substantial significance to enhance understanding of the story, is the way in which Louise Mallard is referred to. The story begins its first sentence by referring to the protagonist as Mrs. Mallard. This simple reference is the first impression given to the reader of the main character. By calling her Mrs. Mallard as opposed to calling her Louise Mallard, or simply Louise the impression and understanding of her is shaped for the reader. Identifying and introducing the character, as Mrs. Mallard is essentially defining her through the existence of another. Her name, and thus her entire existence is not referred to as being that of an individual defined by her own traits, but instead as the wife of another individual. She is not her own person with a life that is her own, but rather she is defined only through being attached to Mr. Mallard. Josephine makes her most important

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

“There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself.(203). In the late 1800s marriage was seen as something all women should do and they should put up with their husbands. As said by the author of “Ladies of Seneca Falls”, Miriam Gurko, "Once a woman married, she forfeited her legal existence. She couldn't sign a contract, make a will, sue in a court of law"(8). Louise felt restraint by the institution of marriage and wanted to control her own destiny.

After all, Mrs. Mallard accepted her husband’s death even though her husband had pushed her to become depressed without knowing how bad he was actually treating having her as a housewife. She still died happy thinking that with her husband had passed away. Although she had never received the news about her husband still being alive and better than ever, she still thought that she was free and that her life head was full of hope and

In their minds, Mrs. Mallard was so elated at seeing her husband alive again that her heart couldn’t take it and she just died. In reality, I believe the renewed drive to live was crushed out of her at that moment, where she realized that her chance for a free life just wasn’t going to happen.

In "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid, an older person, who perhaps appears to be the young girl's mother, starts to demonstrate to a young girl how to do certain tasks and then later seems to be scolding the girl because she, the mother, believes that the child is growing up to be a "slut" (355). In "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin, the author writes about how a repressed Mrs. Louise Mallard, who learns about the alleged death of her husband, finally breaks free from being controlled by him, but at the end, her husband comes back home unharmed and Louise dies along with her relinquished freedom. Both texts revolve around the loss of sense of freedom of Mrs. Louise Mallard and the girl. Although the characters come from different cultures and are

I think Mrs. Mallard felt trapped in her marriage, a marriage where communication no longer existed. I believe this caused her to feel very alone and restless in her marriage. In the late nineteenth century, women basically had little or no rights. It was thought that women’s sole purpose in society was to marry, have children, and to care for their family and household. Women of this era were not allowed to satisfy their own wants and desires. Therefore, we can assume that Mrs. Mallard got married at a young age. This fact, along with the crumbling of her marriage caused her to feel lost in a world where she knew not even herself. The fact that she was unable to experience life for herself resulted in her yearning desire for independence. These explanations contributed to Mrs. Mallard’s overwhelming enjoyment of her newfound freedom.

After we know how the story turns out, if we reread it, we find irony at the very start. Because Mrs. Mallard's friends and her sister assume, mistakenly, that she is deeply in love with her husband, Brently Mallard, they take great care to tell her gently of his death. They mean well, and in fact they do well, bringing her an hour of life, and hour of joyous freedom, but it is ironic that they think their news is sad. True, Mrs. Mallard at first expresses grief when she hears the news, but soon she finds joy. So Richards's "sad message" (12), though sad in Richards's eyes, is in fact a happy message.

“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.

Chopin tells the story through the narrator's voice. The narrator isn’t a spectator, however. The narrator, for example, knows that Mrs. Mallard, did not love her husband (paragraph 15). It is made clear that the narrator, knew more than what could be easily noticed by the reader. Chopin, never informs the reader what Mrs. Mallard is feeling. Instead, as the reader one is forced to observe all Mrs. Mallard's words and actions to understand how Mrs. Mallard feels.