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.

In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, the main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard, is a woman with a heart problem that gets horrifying news that her husband has passed away in a train crash. When she starts thinking about her freedom, she gets excited; she is happy to start her new, free life. However, a few hours later her husband walks in the door and she finds out it was all a mistake. When she realizes her freedom is gone her heart stop and she then dies. In “Desiree’s Baby” Desiree is an orphaned woman who married her loving husband, Armand, and they are very much in love. In Kate Chopin’s short story is says, “"He was reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana?" (24-26). When they finally have a baby, they notice that the child is showing marks that he is a mix of two races. The husband blames the wife because of her unknown past and sends her and the baby away for good. Later, as he is cleaning out their old stuff, he finds a letter that says, in fact, he is the one of mixed race and not her. The husband then realizes he gave up everything he cared about over a silly mistake. Both of these stories show the women struggling in their marriages. It is typical for Kate Chopin to show the dominance in the male characters, especially in the marriages as it was in the “Old South”, when women were meant to serve their husbands. Rena Korb says, “In certain ways, "Desiree 's Baby" is

“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

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.

Feminism is played out in a major way in Kate Chopins’ “The Story of an Hour.” The story portrays a story about the lack of freedom that all woman had in the 1800’s. The word feminism as defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes. A woman’s job and duty in the 1800’s was to tend to the needs of their husband’s needs. In “The Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard, one of the main characters, was told about her husband’s death and she was initially very emotional. Her sadness was quickly turned into a burst of joy because she felt a sense of freedom. The story takes a very weird and ironic twist because her husband was really not dead and when Mrs. Mallard finds out about this she regretted abandoning her moment of freedom. If we were looking at this story through the historical and feminist lenses one would suggest that this story is about a male dominated society in the 1800s. This male dominated society caused the woman to have a lack of freedom and really made it hard for woman to have a self-identity.

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.

In the past equality was a big issue. Man and Woman did not have the same rights. Women sick in ambitions. The story “The Story of an Hour” deals about a wife who lost her husband and is destroyed by it. All the love she has for him disappeared and first she has to find a way to handle it. After she stops crying, she finally pushes herself up, looks out the window to see the clear blue sky, which helps her to realize that she is not under her husband’s control anymore. Finally, she was released. Also in “Trifles” the wife had to handle the situation that her husband dies but in this case the wife most likely killed her husband because she could not stand anymore the fact that he treated her as a slave. Both women have to accept a big loss in their lives but they also feel a sense of freedom and relief that they are not anymore under a man’s control. Both stories deal with women who struggle under their rules of their husbands but at the end they find a way to escape and finally start to live their own life. The stories are taken place in the early 1900s and act about the old traditional gender roles which played an important role in the society. Women had to fight for their freedom and against their husbands.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She didn’t know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air. Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will—as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.

I read the book called The Story of an Hour, and in that story the main character Kate Chopin sheds goodness in one hour of Mrs. Mallard’s life. She used the theme of secretly being an unhappy wife with a bad heart, to shed happiness on the journey of feelings Mrs. Mallard spends the entire hour to compare how her husband’s death is exactly as her own’s death. From when at that moment “she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms” (pg. 555) to the most shocking moment that stopped her heart when she finds after all this time he is alive and well, her emotions and thoughts are expressed with this fresh and new perspective she has of the entire world. In that very moment she told her self in a whisper like voice “free!

As i was reading “ The Story of an Hour”, I realized it was very in depth. I found the story to be deep because love and marriage could be a powerful thing. But, could also be easily dismissed. A range of emotions: feeling of grief, lost of partnership, independence, freedom.

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is a short story about an hour in time. In that hour we find out that the main character Louise Mallard’s husband has been killed in a railroad disaster. The husband Brently Mallard’s friend is the one who finds the news but realizes that Louise needs to be told with great delicacy due to her heart condition. Upon hearing the news Louise like most grieves immediately. But as she contemplates what has happen and her future she realizes she if finally free the confines of marriage. Even though she loved her husband most of the time she looks at this disaster not as a terrible tragedy but as a new lease on life. Then the unthinkable happens, her husband walks through the door. Instead of relinquishing

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin expresses Ms. Mallard’s feelings towards her husband’s death in an appalling train accident. Due to her bad heart, her sister Josephine had to be the bearer of bad news and approach his death gently to her. According to the quote, “ But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought”, it lets us know that she is quite different than other women and that there is conniving plan she has developed in her mind (31). Ironically, the horrific news brings happiness to her because of her new ability to be free. We notice of her changing personality and her broadened outlook as she sits in her room staring out of the window. As she is dreaming of the lively dreams, we see her become more independent as a woman and actually want to better herself to make her happy. It seems that Ms. Mallard has waited for this moment from her husband’s existence so that she can discover who she really is. Ms. Mallard finds unexpected freedom by her reaction to her husband’s death, the reaction to him actually being alive, and in the marriage among Mr. and Ms. Mallard.

In The Story of an Hour the phrase “the joy that kills” ends the story in such a dramatic way. This phrase gives everyone that reads this story a different idea of what is meant by the “the joy that kills.” There are two different meanings that I gain from the interpretation of this phrase. Within the story the wife thought that her husband was dead so she was sad. Though she was sad, she began to think of what his death meant to her own life. With her husband being dead it meant that she could have her own freedom instead of living under his shadow. At the end of the story, the husband walked through the door and she died from “the joy that kills”. The first interpretation I grasped was not the literal meaning, which she was so happy to see

In Kate Chopin “The Story of an Hour”, the reader is presented with the theme of prohibited independence. In Kate Chopin “The Storm”, the scenery in this story builds the perfect atmosphere for an adulterous affair. The importance of these stories is to understand the era they occurred. Kate Chopin wrote stories with exceptional openness about sexual desires. In “The Storm”, a short story written by Kate Chopin in a time when women were expected to act a certain way and sexual cravings was considered to be something only faced by men. She criticized society for its constant close-mindedness in a time when decency was considered to be an attribute, and she helped generate a more enlightened attitude among women and men of her time. Meanwhile, “The Story of an Hour” was written in a period when law code favored the spouses in all domestic affairs and left women without many legal rights. As one will read, the thought of freedom is closely tied to the prospect of escaping restrictions of being married. Kate Chopin short stories centers around the theme of feminism. In both short stories the theme is connected with repressed feeling and desire, deep moments of freeness, and symbolism.

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