Story Of An Hour Critical Analysis

     Relationships seem to be the favorite subject of Kate Chopin’s stories. As Margaret Bauer suggests that Chopin is concerned with exploring the “dynamic interrelation between women and men, women and patriarchy, even women and women” (Bauer 146). In “The Story of an Hour” Chopin deals with the subject of marriage. She illustrates the influence of family alliance on individual freedom. According to Wohlpart,“The Story of an Hour” describes the journey of Mrs. Mallard against the Cult of True Womanhood as she slowly becomes aware of her own desires and thus of a feminine self that has long been suppressed”(Wohlpart 2). The Cult of True Womanhood in the XIX century included “purity” and “domesticity”. The former suggested that women must maintain their virtue. The latter – denied them their intellectual and professional capabilities (Papke 12). Being the victim of this Cult, Louise Mallard was a good example of a wife without “her own desires and feminine self”.

Chopin's use of language effectively conveys the intensity of the emotions that overcome Louise. Repetition of the word "free" reveals the exaltation Louise experiences in being released from possession by her husband's will. The diction aptly portrays the significance, emotionally and physically, of Louise's transformation. Tumultuously, Louise's bosom, the seat of passion, rose and fell as the "monstrous joy" possessed her. As the elixir of life "courses" through her once weak heart, Louise's "pulses beat fast." When Louise's fancy runs "riot along those days ahead of her", the reader feels the excitement Louise feels. Through the image of Louise as a winged "goddess of Victory", her inner strength from triumph over repression becomes palpable. That strength is reaffirmed in Chopin's use of words that connote potency. Louise has a "clear and exalted perception" of herself.

Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of An Hour,” emotionally illustrates the hour in which a young woman with a heart condition finds out her husband has been killed in a mining accident. In the beginning, she grieves over the loss of her husband, but she soon becomes relieved and joyous when she realizes that she is now free. However, her husband returns after having been far from the mines for the day and her heart problems return and she dies. Kate Chopin was an early feminist author and was well acquainted with death after losing many siblings as a child, her husband (who left her a large amount of debt), and her mother with whom she was very close. As a means of therapy, Chopin took up writing and her ideas about feminism and death are very clear. In “The Story of An Hour,” Chopin uses multiple symbols and an allusion to a Greek god to illustrate and support the idea that male oppression harms the souls and lives of women.

In 1940’s, women are expected to bear children, take care of their husband and children and keep the house clean. Chopin points out that Louise was happy to be free, body and soul free from her husband which shows that men believes women are considered weak. Louise seeks freedom from their marriage and she believes the only way to be free is the death of her husband. Women couldn't divorce their husbands and if the husband left the wife, he would get their children, home, money and all the women owned. But now, women can divorce

In “The Story of an Hour” there is conflict that states why Louise would want to be free; the role of the wife versus the role of the husband. For instance, Louise struggled with her feelings about her marriage for years. Louise thinks "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" (16). She admits that she did love her husband, but often she did not. On the other hand, the story suggests that her husband was

Freedom is a very common concept nowadays, but a precious thing back in the 19th century, especially for women. Some women might not question the restrictions of society because they do not understand how important independence is; some of them keep thinking about freedom and fighting for it. Mrs. Mallard in the story is a passionless young lady who has heart disease, and tends to give readers a feeling that she is a weaker person than other women both physically and psychologically. Chopin describes in the short story, “that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband 's death” (281). She live in a great house that has comfortable chair in a nice room; she is able to

In the story we find that, Louise feels overcome with satisfaction about the passing of her husband. After Louise's brief moment of sorrow for her husband, author Kate Chopin “Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. [...] She said it over and over under her breath: ‘free! Free! Free!’” (Chopin 630). She feels as if a great burden has been lifted. Her initial response, where she wept and had great sorrow for her loss, was appropriate to the news of the loss of her husband. However, her second reaction, in which she rejoices as if a curse has been lifted, is completely inappropriate. If she had truly loved the man, she would have continued to feel sorrow and grief, not freedom. Although her

In the story of an hour, Kate Chopin has depicted a tone amongst many wives of the late nineteenth century. Women, by this time, were very far from the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution or the “Women’s Suffrage Movement.” What this explains is that women of this era are still being undermined by society, neither unequal nor independent from that of the voice of the masculine gender. This treatment towards women was a domestic one. Many betrothed women of this timeframe were unhappy in their marriages, due to a culture that shunned the idea of a free and empowered woman. The underlying meaning that Kate Chopin wanted to convey in The Story of an Hour, is that woman of the late nineteenth century were repressed, unhappy, and imprisoned in their marriages.

In the article “The Autonomous Female Self and the Death of Louise Mallard”, Mark Cunningham clearly states that “the story portrays the position of women in late nineteenth-century American society as so bleak that the attempt to break from the life-denying limitations of patriarchal society is itself self-destructive” (49). It evaluates Louise’s death as the tragedy of losing independence in marriage and being controlled by society’s denying perspective to female, as well as demonstrating the desire of the woman to live in an autonomous life at that time period. Upon this point, he emphasizes if Louise, representative of all women in the society, “break free of patriarchal definitions (wife, widow, lover) in her own mind, she will find no other social system to accept her: women have been unable to create a system of their own.” (Cunningham 49). It points out that the role of women which is only associated with domesticity and often tends to be undervalued. If Louise stops inhibiting her appetence of independence and develop a strong voice, it is like standing in the position that is gaining the whole social system. When Louise is there on her own, she fails to control the forbidden joy of being “free! Body and soul free.” (Chopin 3), which is actually contradicted to her death as her husband

The shock kills her must, then, be the realization that she has lost this freedom, and with it her human individuality.” (220). Mrs. Mallard was filled with so much joy at the thought of finally having deliverance from her husband that the thought of her losing that killed her. One can infer that Mrs. Mallard felt trapped inside her marriage due to the freedom she finally felt after the thought of her husband’s death. Chopin perfectly exemplifies how women could have felt trapped inside their marriages in this story, and she shows how great women felt at the thought of freedom from an unhappy marriage.

In the story independence is something most people don’t ever experience, its something that really only ever thought about it. She tries to get rid of the feeling of being free which show how forbidden it is however she accepts it. Chopin suggests that all marriages are oppressive and even if you are in a loving marriage you still lose your independence. The open window in the room represents all the possibilities and When Louise is looking out the window she see’s fluffy clouds, treetops, and blue skies everything suggests spring and a feeling of

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin has many different analyses. One analysis being that the main character Louise Mallard, truly begins to feel freedom over her life. Critics often argue about Louise Mallard’s humanity and consider her a bad person because of her reaction to her husband’s death. Chopin only describes this brief hour of Louise’s life, leaving the readers in the unknown about her marriage with her husband. Given the literary evidence “There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination” (The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin) you can see that Louise almost despised her marriage, but why? In this essay we will look at different ways to prove Louise Mallard was a good person just in the wrong marriage, whether it was a bad marriage, or she just felt trapped.

Mrs. Louise Mallard, the main character from Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of an Hour,” is not the housewife that those around her assume. Although she loves her husband, she is shocked and overwhelmed by the sense of new-found freedom that accompanies her husband’s alleged death. Mrs. Mallard represents the patriarchal control over women of her time, as well as the postulation that a woman could not maintain her independence. Chopin uses Louise Mallard’s reactions to her husband’s supposed death, her subsequent untimely death, and the speculations of those around her to personify the dependent nature that was imposed on women of the turn-of-the-century.

In addition to the theme of individualism, Chopin's use of the oxymoron "monstrous-joy" in Louise's reaction of gaining self-possession, implies that she is not conformed to the typical ideals of a wife, or woman, in this time period. Women generally sought motherhood and marriage, to which Louise shows dislike for. In response to Brently's return, Louise dies; the reader is given this information on her death, "When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease-of joy that kills" (Chopin 41). While the other characters of the story believe she dies of joy from seeing her husband, the reader knows that it is quite, in fact, the other way around; in that, she has just had this beautiful feeling of freedom stripped out of her grasp. The walls that which have confined her were broken and rebuilt within a matter of minutes.

By isolating herself from everyone, one can suggest Chopin has assigned a special meaning to the door. Here, the door can serve as the boundary between dream and reality. In other words, outside the door is reality and that means Louise needs to behave in accordance with her assigned gender roles, which Friedan strongly criticized in her theory of gender role. On the other hand, the room that Louise locks herself in is a symbol of her dream because she sees “patches of blue sky,” “trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life,” and feels the “delicious breath of rain” in the dream (Chopin 524). Based on Chopin’s usage on words such as “blue,” “spring,” and “delicious” to describe the beautiful scenery that Louise obtains from freedom, they symbolize Louise is ready to start her new chapter of life without her husband and enjoys the freedom that she has longed for throughout her marriage. Moreover, these words create energetic and delightful atmospheres, which Chopin prepares readers to believe the protagonist, Louise, will have a happy ending. In fact, when Louise leaves her room, it symbolizes she wakes up from her dream and she needs to face the reality that her husband is still alive. By creating such misalignment, Chopin proves that women can