Story Of An Hour Literary Analysis Essay

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.

The Story of an Hour," by Kate Chopin is the tragic story of a woman whose newfound position as a widow gives her strength. She develops a sense of freedom as she embraces her husband's death as an opportunity to establish her own identity. The tragedy is when her newfound identity gets stripped away as the appearance of her husband reveals that he is still alive. The disappointment from this tragedy kills her with a heart attack symbolizing the many conflicts that she faced throughout the story. The conflicts the character faces within herself and society show that the social norms for women were suppressing to their strength and individuality as human beings.

In addition the intense desire for freedom is even more obvious in "The Story of an Hour." Mrs. Mallard's craving for freedom is so strong that when she is given the news of her husband's death, she is relieved that "there would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself" (Chopin 2). It seems as though she wants to live her own life without having her husband tell her what to do all the time.

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.

What Mrs. Mallard doesn’t know is whether her feelings are good or bad, and how society would think of her thoughts. Mrs. Mallard has a heart defect, making sudden surprises and disaster extremely dangerous to her health. Her sister takes very special care not to bring the news of Mr. Mallard’s death to soon, or even all at once. Through a series of hints toward the death, Mrs. Mallard slowly

When hearing the news of Mrs. Mallard’s tragic train accidents death in the newspaper his friend Richards come to the Mallard’s house where he and Mrs. Mallard’s sister Josephine to inform of Mrs. Mallard for Brently’s death by the second telegram and had hurry to tell friend in bearing the sad message in response, Mrs. Mallard weep at one before going to sit alone in her room.

In the very beginning of this story we find out that Mrs. Mallards health condition is heart trouble. When her sister, Josephine, finds out about her husbands death, she wants to make sure that the information she has is correct before telling Mrs. Mallard. When anyone receives depressing news your body reacts to it, so knowing that Mrs. Mallard has a heart condition, Josephine has to be careful when relaying the news. For example, in the story it says, “It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing.” This shows that her sister was trying to be careful with how she relayed the message to keep from having a medical

In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of An Hour”, there happens to be a gender issue. Louise Mallard has just learned the news of her husband dying in an accident and she honestly does not know how to feel about it. In the essay, there are two literary terms that stand out more than the others. The two terms are foil and mood. Chopin sets the mood early in the essay by stating that, “Knowing 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” (Chopin 13).

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin tells a story with a negative view of marriage by expressing to the reader a woman who is clearly ecstatic that her spouse had just died. This is negative view is expressed through the language in the story. For example, Kate Chopin uses the language to describe Louise’s emotions as she goes between numbness and extreme happiness by her new freedom she had acquired.

“Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, exemplifies the inner conflict of many women during the late 1800s, living in a suppressed patriarchal society, without the freedom and individuality afforded the men of this era. The story conveys the theme of conflict between displayed social identity and suppressed private identity through point of view, and symbolism, and plot development. To begin with, the point of view assists in effectively conveying the conflict between Mrs. Mallards public and private identity. Use of a third person point of view, is critical in identifying the conflict between her public identity and private identity by allowing the reader to see the outside perspective of her public identity and also her views and thoughts from

The Values of Popular Mechanics And The Story of an Hour The Story of an Hour is a short story written by Kate Chopin on April 19, 1894, originally published in Vogue on December 6, 1894 under the name The Dream of an Hour, and later on republished on January 5, 1895 in St. Louis Life under the name The Story of an Hour. Popular Mechanics is a short story written by Raymond Carver and was published in his 1981 short story collection What we talk about when we talk about love. It was re-published in 1988 in the collection Where I’m calling from. The main character in The Story of an Hour is Louis Mallard who is a married woman. The story depicts on Louis’ reactions and actions as she is informed of the news of her husband’s demise.

In the short story “The Story of an Hour,” a young women, Mrs. Mallard, had heard about her husband’s death, she felt rathered relieved by the news. Is that such a bad thing to feel? She felt grief but then real life hit her, the life of a struggling women in a patriarchal society, and she was happy he was gone. In Kate Chopin’s story, she shows many examples of regionalism, realism, naturalism, and romanticism.

The short story, “The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin, Chopin uses the theme of death to symbolize joy and independence. The social norm for death is that it brings out the negative feelings of oneself, such as, sorrow, grief, isolation, guilt, and regrets. In “The Story of an Hour,” death does indeed bring out some of these negative feelings, like sorrow and grief. However, the story has shown that death can also bring joy and independence. “The Story of an Hour” begins by introducing the readers to Mrs. Mallard who has been told the horrible news that her husband, Bently Mallard, was killed in a railroad accident.

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.

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.