The Story Of An Hour By Kate Chopin

In the “Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, is about pleasure of freedom and the oppression of marriage. Just like in Kate Chopin’s story, inside most marriages, even the ones that seem to be the happiest, one can be oppressed. Even though, one might seem to be happy deep inside they miss the pleasure of freedom and living life to the fullest. Just like, in this story Mrs. Mallard feels trapped and when she hears about her husband’s death she first feels distraught, but ultimately realizes that she has gained her freedom. This news leads her to an inner battle within herself, as she tries to keep those feelings from coming out. The story culminates when she dies of a heart attack, because she realizes that her husband is not dead and she would be returning to her old pointless existence. This story has many great literary elements that keep the story interesting throughout its plot, by using great foreshadowing and symbolism.

Mallard’s heart trouble, after she goes to her room, “we realize that the problem with her heart is that her marriage has not allowed her to ‘live for herself’.”(Hicks) With the news of her husband’s death Mrs. Mallard has now been reborn. She is now free, free from the shadow of her husband. Although the author gave little details about the marriage between Mr. and Mrs. Mallard, the story suggests it had not been unhappy but Mrs. Mallard had felt repressed. “She knew she would cry when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead.”(Chopin) She knew her husband loved her and she said she loved him sometimes. However, after his death, “there would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers..."(Chopin) Mrs. Mallard felt it was a crime to impose one person's will on another person. The thoughts of her freedom brought out a joy from within her. This she describes as a "monstrous joy" because it comes from her husband's death but allows her complete happiness to be free. As Berkove says,” The monstrous surge of joy she experiences is both the cause and first sign of a fatal overload to her feeble heart. Physically, her heart is weak, and emotionally, it had no room for anyone else.

In the past many decades the definition of what a marriage means changed dramatically in some areas. For the author of both stories, Kate Chopin, she wanted the reader to get something out of the story. She likes to explore all types of themes in her stories such as, racism, the roles of women, and adultery. With these themes and messages she struggled to have most of her stories published. In many of her stories she passed along these messages through the manner of a marriage. In her short stories “The Story of an Hour” and “Desiree 's Baby” she showed just how different marriages could be as well as how similar they can be. Chopin portrays the lives of the main characters, Louise Mallard from “The Story of An Hour” and Desiree Aubigny

Mallard after her sister tells her the news of her husband is not the common reaction expected when someone suddenly dies. Her reaction quotes, “She did 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” (Chopin 653). This quote indicates the fact that she does not react the way that a spouse would when he or she’s spouse has passed and having the utter feeling of denial. Though uncertain of her own feelings, Chopin begins to describe Mrs. Mallard’s decaying thoughts of her former lifestyle into something more

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.

“The story of an hour” by Kate Chopin was a story that was ironical yet profoundly deep. As a student I have been asked to read “a story of an hour” many times, and every time I’m surprised by how I enjoy it. People can read thousands of stories in their life times and only a handful will every stand out to them, stories that can draw out an emotion or spark a thought are the ones that will standout more. For me and “a story of an hour” the thought of freedom is what draws me the most as a teenage I would feel a deep and heavy cage that traps me in its invisible snarl. It is hard to explain why one feels that way many a times feelings are just a way of showing frustration. Mrs. Mallard I assume has many frustrations, and she associated her imprisonment with her marriage to her husband. In many versions Mrs. Mallard says he is not a mean man and she did have feelings. It is just an unexplainable blanket of depression that anyone can fall through. Like a cold or an unsuspecting wounds one cannot prevent what one does not know of until it becomes apparent .as the story progresses I add more of my own emotion and slowing I draw a bridge that connects me to the basic feel of the story. In the begging I am just an outsider looking in not yet connected with their feeling, then the realization hits one and so does mine, and finally when Mrs. Mallard freedom from her is taken yet it is not. This is what make the story believable the unchained freedom of feelings that is taboo for

Chopin also includes an example of what could set Mrs. Mallard into a fatal heart attack, when she mentions how Mrs. Mallard’s sister and husband try to tell her the news of her husbands alleged death as simply as they possibly can (par. 2). Moreover, Chopin has incorporated a forbidden topic, which is Mrs. Mallard’s happiness stemming from her husband’s death. Using this topic, the work then takes a dramatic turn, as she begins to realize that she’s “free, free, free” from the “oppression” that is her husband, and this aids in establishing a sense of dramatic irony nearing the end of the tale (par. 11). To further elaborate about her husband, she was in a position in which I would assume the marriage

Mrs Mallard's awkward attitude after learning of her husband's death establishes an irony- somebody who is really happy in marriage will not enjoy nature in peace and have mixed emotions; the person will feel genuine grief upon hearing of the death of her husband. Here, Mrs Mallard's reaction portrays the extent to which her thirst for freedom was strong. Kate Chopin allows us to visualise the moment that Mrs Mallard is able to shed the bondage of marriage: "free, free, free!." She feels liberated through her husband's death. Much emphasis is laid on her joy upon finding freedom- "there would be no one to live for." The author also points out that "she knew that she would weep again.....folded in death." This only highlights the fact that it is not an expression of love but seems more like a duty that

In “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin focuses on the idea of freedom throughout the story. Mrs. Mallard is a lonely wife who suffers from heart trouble. She is told by her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richards that her husband has passed away in a train accident. She locks herself in a room expecting to be devastated, but instead feels freedom. Later, she exits her room and her husband walks through the door, causing her to die of a heart attack. Chopin uses this story to demonstrate that too much freedom is often dangerous.

Reaction to the Character of Mrs. Mallard in The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

“The Story of An Hour” focuses on sixty minutes in the life of a young nineteenth-century woman, Mrs. Mallard. Upon learning of her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard experiences an epiphany about her future without a husband. Her life, due to heart problems, suddenly ends after she unexpectedly finds out her husband is actually alive. Mrs. Mallard’s actions cause the reader to cogitate a hidden meaning weaved into Kate‘s short story. Chopin had an idea that women felt confined in their marriages, and the idea is brought out through the protagonist’s initial reaction, excessive joy, and new perspective of the world following the upsetting news.

Everyone who reads a story will interpret things slightly different than the person who reads it before or after him or her. This idea plays out with most every story, book, song, and movie. These interpretations create conflict and allow people to discuss different ideas and opinions. Without this conflict of thought there is no one devoting time to debate the true meaning of a text. Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” tells about a woman who is informed of her husbands death, processes the emotions, and becomes content with this new status as an individual person – losing all the expectations that society expected her to live by within a marriage. This story however is written in a way that the reader has the final interpretation of the text. There are many different interpretations on not only the reason for the main character’s death, but also on the overwhelming emotions that she faces.

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is a wonderful short story bursting with many peculiar twists and turns. Written in 1894, the author tells a tale of a woman who learns of her husband’s death, but comes to find pleasure in it. Many of the elements Kate Chopin writes about in this story symbolize something more than just the surface meaning. Through this short story, told in less than one thousand one hundred words, Kate Chopin illustrates a deeper meaning of Mrs. Mallard’s marriage with her husband through many different forms of symbolism such as the open window in the bedroom, Mrs. Louise Mallard’s heart trouble, and Chopin’s physical description of Mrs. Mallard.

Mrs. Mallard suffers from a heart condition; thus, her sister Josephine gently and carefully breaks the news of Mr. Mallard’s death. Richards, a close friend of Mr. Mallard, is the first to discover the news of Mr. Mallard’s railroad tragedy. When hearing the news, Mrs. Mallard collapses in grief into her sister’s arms and retreats upstairs into her room. While her sister begs Mrs. Mallard to open the door, Mrs. Mallard reflects on her feelings. She sinks into an armchair facing an open window noticing the “new spring life, the delicious breath of rain in the air, the peddler in the street crying his ware, the notes of a distant song which someone was singing and countless sparrows twittering in the eaves” (Chopin 556). This signifies a new blossoming life: a life that she would live for herself. Although her husband is loving, and she knows that she will weep again when she sees his dead body, she realizes how confined marriage is for her. Robert Evans, author of “Literary Contexts in Short Stories: Kate Chopin's “‘The Story of an Hour,’” claims that Mrs. Mallard looks forward to a bright future rather than a dreadful life. She becomes aware that she must live alone rather than being imprisoned by marriage. As these thoughts circulate in her mind, she keeps whispering, “Free! Body and soul free!” (Chopin 557).By conveying the story through Mrs. Mallard’s thoughts, Chopin portrays how women actually feel compared to what they present in society. While Josephine and society expect Mrs. Mallard to be grieving, Mrs. Mallard is actually looking forward to the days ahead of her: “Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own” (Chopin 557). When Mrs. Mallard discovers that the news of her husband’s death was inaccurate, Mrs. Mallard dies from a heart attack after seeing her husband alive. The

Kate Chopin provides her reader with an enormous amount of information in just a few short pages through her short story, “The Story of an Hour.” The protagonist, Louise Mallard, realizes the many faults in romantic relationships and marriages in her epiphany. “Great care [is] taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death” (Chopin 168). Little do Josephine and Richards know, the news will have a profoundly positive effect on Louise rather than a negative one. “When she abandoned herself,” Mrs. Mallard opened her mind to a new way of life. The word usage shows that the protagonist experienced a significant change. This life wouldn’t be compromised by her partner’s will, which will enable her to live for