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 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

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.

In the story of an hour, Kate Chopin has depicted a tone amongst many wives of the late nineteenth century. Women, by this time, were very far from the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution or the “Women’s Suffrage Movement.” What this explains is that women of this era are still being undermined by society, neither unequal nor independent from that of the voice of the masculine gender. This treatment towards women was a domestic one. Many betrothed women of this timeframe were unhappy in their marriages, due to a culture that shunned the idea of a free and empowered woman. The underlying meaning that Kate Chopin wanted to convey in The Story of an Hour, is that woman of the late nineteenth century were repressed, unhappy, and imprisoned in their marriages.

Throughout the short story, Mallard’s actions characterize her indirectly. When she is first informed of her husband’s supposed death, she seems to be distraught

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 short story from the late nineteenth century focusing on a young woman as she reacts to a report that says her husband, on the top of the list of the report, had died in a train accident. Due to this unfortunate accident she is given the chance of freedom and Chopin's story tells that hour. The main theme to this short story one may think it relates to the saying, "carpe diem", meaning to seize the day. The themes of this short story include oppression and repression.

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!

The short story, “The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin depicts on the dramatizing news that the protagonist, Mrs. Louise Mallard, is notified with. Chopin uses a wide amount of different rhetorical devices such as Symbolism, Imagery, and Allegory to help the reader fully understand the reading and see what Chopin is trying to set the story as. Throughout the story, Chopin sets a certain tone that lasts from beginning to end. The narrator 's portrayal of Mrs. Mallard shows someone who brushes off the ideas of love and even the finest of marriages for the magnificent thought of unadulterated lack of restrictions.

The very first sentence in the story opens up with “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken

“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.

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