I think that the theme for “The Story of an Hour” is death. I say this for a couple of reasons. the first reason is mainly because of a very specific quote at the beginning of the story. The second reason is because of Mrs.Mallard’s sister, Josephine. And my last reason is because of how Mrs.Mallard dies at the end. So my first reason of why I think that “death” is the theme of “The Story of an Hour” is because of this very specific quote at the start of the story. The quote simply says: “knowing that Mrs.Mallard was afflicted with heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.” Now to me this quote is very interesting because it immediately foreshadows that Mrs.Mallard’s heart problems could possibly cost her life. It also states that her beloved husband had suffered an unexpected death. This quote really roams around death, which is one of the reasons why I believe that the story’s theme is based on death. …show more content…
Now I know that it may seem weird that I would say this, but the reason behind this is actually based on how Josephine reacts on Mrs.Mallard’s behavior. In the story we see how Josephine becomes very worried on her sister’s health. What really helps support this, is when Josephine is on the outside of Mrs.Mallard’s door and says: “Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.” This quote indicates that Josephine knows that her sister is isn’t doing well and that she senses that something could happen to
And eventually die together as comrades. In the story of an hour the irony is whenever Mrs. Mallard neighbors find out that her husband has died they try to break the news to her softly so that she will not die from her heart condition, but it turns out that her husband never died in a train wreck, so her surprise at seeing him walk in the door alive causes her to die. “
However, rather than primarily following the life events of a man, “Story of an Hour” is a short story that follows, as the title suggests, one hour of a woman's life. The work starts by stating that Mrs. Mallard, the main character of the piece, has a heart condition. Quickly, readers discover a series of events that come after Mrs. Mallard finds out that her husband died in an
“The Story of an Hour” tells a tragic story about a women, who has a heart condition, and receives the news of her husband's passing. At first the woman, Louise, cannot comprehend what she is hearing. She runs up to her room and looks out her window at an image that calms her. She than begins to think of her future without her husband around. She than comes to the conclusion that she is free.
In “The Story of an Hour”, the main character Mrs. Mallard, gets news that her husband has been killed in an accident. Her sister delays telling her the news because she has a bad heart, but when she finally tells the news, Mrs. Mallard wants to be left alone. They think that she is very upset by her husband’s death, but
"The Story of an Hour" involves one married couple and when the wife, Mrs. Mallard, hears her husband has died in a railroad disaster she breaks down into tears. Moments after sitting in her chair weeping she begins to feel free to do as she wants now that he has passed on. As she approaches the stairs in her home the door opens and her husband stands alive and well. When the doctors arrive they say Mrs. Mallard ."..had died of a heart disease-of joy that kills." In both of these short stories the wives seem to share the foul qualities of selfishness, unfaithfulness and confusion.
In "Story of an Hour", we begin with the climatic event, the news of her husbands death. Mrs. Mallard has heart problems so when her sister Josephine attempted to break the news to her; she tried to break it as gently as possible. Mrs. Mallard first seems to be in pain by going to her room and sitting in her armchair near the window while sobbing like a child. After a few moments, she begins to repeat the word free. This is one of the turning points in the story. We now realize that she's not in sorrow, but in glee that her husband is dead. She is now free; free from her unhappy relationship. Chopin now surprises everyone with another turning point. The husband walks in through the front door. He was alive, far from dead. As soon as Mrs. Mallard sees her husband, she collapses to the floor. The doctor claims that she died of a heart disease, but ironically the truth is, she died of despair. She was so glad that she was free, and then it all seemed to be a fantasy. It turned out that she wasn't free, and her heart couldn't take the pain to keep living in a suppressed relationship. She may just be better of dead although she did want a new life. Depending on how one looks at it, one may still argue that she was free in the end...free through death.
The Story of an Hour: The first sentence sums up all that is wrong with suspense in this story, "Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break […] the news of her husband 's death.” In The Interlopers, story pertaining details were introduced as scene-setting, a subtle plot-motivating technique this story abandons. The remaining “suspense" is developed entirely through Mrs. Millard’s hyperactive imagination as she dreams of the future. Her euphoric visions are repeated, and repeated again. An uneasiness is created for the sole reason that most people know that sane people don’t think this way. Ultimately, the lazy suspense building cheapens the ending and while successfully creates tension, dissolves itself by being overly obvious and unvaried.
The conflict of this story discusses the battle between Mrs. Mallard's conscience and how she should feel about her husband’s death. A normal person would feel grief for a loved one's death, but in "The Story of an Hour", Mrs. Mallard been paralyzed and does not know how to feel about it. This has been because she’s been imprisoned by her husband. When he died in a train accident she was free of him. The "joy that kills" at the end of the short story may refer to that. The elixir of life symbolizes the very essence of what life is. At first her sister and her friend didn’t knew how to tell her, because of her heart condition. When the news of the death of her husband reach her, she starts to see
In “The Story of an Hour” we are taken through a journey. The journey is the thoughts and emotions going through Mrs. Mallards (Louise) mind. The journey only takes an hour, so everything moves at a fast pace. Louise seemed to process the news of her husband’s death without an initial element of disbelief and shock. She goes right into the reaction of grieving for her husband. She quickly begins to feel other emotions. At first she does not understand them. The journey is a way that Louise comes to her final thoughts of freedom. She looks into the future and looks forward to living a long life on her own terms.
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
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
“The Story of an Hour” is a story about a woman, Mrs. Mallard, who comes to find that her beloved husband Brently Mallard was killed in a railroad incident. She mourns of his death in a different way than most would and tries to find a way to get over it. There is a drastic twist to the story when through the front door walks Brently Mallard who had actually not died. Then Mrs. Mallard drops to the floor dead, “of joy that kills”. (The Story of an Hour)
“The Story of an Hour” tells the story about Mrs. Mallard, who learns that her husband is dead and right after that faces a great variety of emotions and feelings. Mrs. Mallard has a heart problem. One day she gets news that her husband has died in a railroad disaster. She starts crying at once, goes upstairs and locks herself in her room. She feels very lonely at first but then she starts feeling happy and free from her marriage. After some time she opens the door and descends the stairs. She surprisingly sees Mr. Mallard at the door. When she looks at Mr. Mallard, she dies suddenly. The doctor says that she dies of her heart disease, from the "joy that kills." This story illustrates the dependent condition and status of married women in the 19th century and reveals the fact that there is no way of escaping from marriage except one’s death.
In "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin, there are many different themes that depicts the relationship between Mr. And Mrs. Mallard throughout the story. These themes such as freedom, confinement, loss of self, escape and alienation. These themes shows the life of a woman's life in the mid 1800's, irony and marriage. The apparent death of Mrs. Mallard's husband shows us that she was living a life without freedom, suggesting that marriage in any form is confining.
The focus of the “The Story of an Hour” is on Mrs. Mallard, who is the quaint and seemed to be frail women with a heart condition. Mrs. Mallard is told that her husband was killed in a tragic train accident. As she processes this devastating news, she realizes that she is free from the chains of her marriage. That she can finally be the woman