Story Of An Hour Literary Analysis Essay

Kate Chopin is known for being criticized for empowering the subject of female sexuality and independence. In Chopin’s short story, “The Story of an Hour”, it is placed in a time where men were known as being the head of the household while women were only in charge of raising the children and caring for the home. In the 1890s, women didn’t have so much power to themselves compared to today’s society where female empowerment is frequently encouraged. Chopin’s story narrates a sequence of Mrs. Mallard’s emotions that goes within the motion of the story. As she overcomes the sudden death of her husband, her emotion of grief soon turns into the sudden feeling of freedom, later on emerging into a strong independent woman.

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.

Setting in a story can create certain moods, influence the way we feel about a character, and change the reader's perceptions. “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin is a short story about a woman named Mrs. Mallard, who learns of her husband’s death. This tragic news causes a range of emotions and internal conflict for the main character. The century, season, and room, in which the story takes place, prepares readers for the overflowing emotions and gives clarity to the character’s frame of mind. Kate Chopin uses the setting to help set the structure of the story.

I chose to do my analysis on the short story, “The Story Of An Hour”. The themes I see in this story is the quest for identity/coming of age, romantic/love, birth, and death. It is about a woman named Mrs. Mallard. She was an elderly lady and had a heart complications. Her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richards had to break the news to her that her husband, Brently Mallard, has been killed in a railroad disaster. Mrs. Mallard was sorrowful and sobbed in her sisters’ arms. After her grieving process, she wanted to be alone, so she went to her room and locked herself in. As she sat in the window, she seem to be calmer and accepted her husband’s death. She was not distressed of what had happened. She began to say the words “free” and her heart

In well-known author, Kate Chopin’s stories, she depicts her themes and ideologies through risky scenarios to express their importance to her views as well as to many others in her time. “The Story of An Hour” describes the scene of a woman hearing the news of her husband’s death in a railroad accident. At first, Mrs. Mallard is upset and crying but then runs to her room alone where she realizes that she is now free. Throughout Chopin’s “The Story of An Hour” she elicits themes that portray her own beliefs such as freedom, women’s rights, and time.

Margarita Engle, a poet, and novelist, once said, “Marriage without love is just one more twisted form of slavery.” In the eighteenth century, marriage was the exit door of many women from their homes whether they believed in love and filled their hearts with hope, or had no choice, and they were sold to men as if they were cattle. In The Story of an Hour, Kate Chopin shows complex issues such as marriage, independence, symbols, and ironies. After hearing the news that Brently Mallard was dead in a railroad accident, Richards, Mr. Mallard’s friend, went to the house to be next to Mrs. Mallard and to help her at this difficult moment. Contrary to what everyone was worried about, Mrs. Mallard knew that she would lament her husband’s death, but she was full of hope, dreaming of her freedom, appreciating life beyond the window, and a new beginning. Unfortunately, Mrs. Mallard’s dreams faded when she went downstairs and her husband arrived alive, and she could not stand it and died. Focusing on The Story of an Hour, there are three main points related to women in the early eighteenth century, such as oppressive marriages, women’s new perspective and ways of liberation, and women’s submission and obedience that demonstrates how women survived, even though they were not heard.

The story, “The Story of an Hour,” written by Kate Chopin who, according to the editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, was born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis in 1851, effectively shows how much women yearn for freedom through the description of a woman’s dramatic psychological change in one hour, as well as the usage of symbolism and irony. The story begins with the mention of Mrs. Mallard’s “heart trouble” (74), which has a dual meaning. Evidently, it tells readers that she not only literally has heart condition, but also suffers from her unsatisfied marriage, being that she doesn’t love her husband from her heart. When she learns that her husband is reported dead, “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

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.

Kate Chopin’s short tale, “The Story of an Hour”, is a writing of irony. It tells of a young women, who’s husband has just died and who seems to be in a state of grief, when she is truly embracing her new found freedom, where she is no longer repressed by her husband. This short story shares similar themes with the article, “Enfranchisement of Women” written by Harriet Mills. An article about the subjection of women in society, and how civilization is afflicted because of it.

The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin is a short yet complex story, describing Mrs Mallard’s feelings. It focuses on the unfolding emotional state of Mrs Mallard after the news of her husbands death, and has overflowing symbolism and imagery. It is an impressive literary piece that touches the readers’ feelings and mind and allows the reader to have a connection to Mrs Mallard’s emotional process. Although the story is short, it is complete with each word carrying deep sense and meaning. It is written in the 19th century, a time that had highly restrictive gender roles that forbade women to live as they saw fit. Mrs Mallard experiences something not everyone during this time has the luck to have; the happiness of freedom that the reader only

In the short story "The Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin, the author, presents the reader with an obscure view of marriage. Chopin's main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard, experiences the excitement of freedom instead of the devastation of loneliness after she receives the news of her husband's death. Mrs. Mallard disturbingly finds out that Brently, her husband is still alive. She know knew that her only chance at freedom is gone. The disappointment instantly kills Mrs. Mallard. Published in the late 1800s, the overbearing nature of marriage presented in "The Story of an Hour" may very well reflect, but not restricted to, that era.

Analysis of “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin Mary Astell, a sixteenth-century English writer, once stated: “If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?” In the short story “The Story of an Hour”, author Kate Chopin illustrates a woman’s sundry emotions upon hearing of her husband’s death. To the woman’s own surprise, she experiences feelings of relief and a newfound freedom. Undeniably, since the beginning of time women have been enslaved by society’s unwritten mandate for a woman’s life: find an agreeable suitor, marry, produce children and be the perfect housewife. This precedent left women at risk of being characterized as abnormal or damaged if these actions were not accomplished by a certain age.

An Open Window to Freedom In the short story “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, we are presented with the theme of freedom with the main character, Louise Mallard. She was married but believed her husband to be dead due to her receiving the news by her sister and one of her husband’s closest friends. She reacted to the news a bit differently from what any bride would usually react. At first she was shocked with the news, but as the story progresses, she goes into her room and begins to feel relief and happiness.

Jennifer Monegro English 102 Prof. James Werner Summer 2014 “The Story of An Hour” written by Kate Chopin during the late nineteenth century portrays a dramatic event in which a woman finds freedom within herself after her estranged husband dies. Chopin seems to portray the position of a wife in a depressive and controlling marriage during the nineteenth century. Mrs. Mallard’s soul awakens to the essence of her freedom as she imagines how life will be without her husband, Brently Mallard. Chopin’s main point about time reflects upon the late nineteenth century when women did not have as much freedom as men. In this era, women’s duties were to take care of the family and home.

Mrs. Millard in “The Story of an Hour” faces the inner psychological strains of women who were suppressed and underrated by the social standards of the time.