The Story Of An Hour By Kate Chopin

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

Mallard as “young, with a fair, calm face…” (428) who is suffering from heart trouble. From the start, the readers are led to believe that Mrs. Mallard was going through emotional turmoil in her life, as it is scarce for a young woman to be facing heart issues.  The story is written in 1894, a time period where women had no right to vote and were expected to remain housewives. It is clear that Chopin is referring to Mrs. Mallard’s health issues as a result of her being overly limited by her husband. Chopin illustrates, “There would be no powerful will binding hers… men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature” (429). Mrs. Mallard realizes that the life she lived, with her husband controlling her and society dictating how she is supposed to act, was not the type of life she ever wanted. She understands her worth as a human being, and her rights to freedom and equality. This is shown when she echoes, “Free! Body and soul free!” (429). At the end of the story, the fear of losing her freedom and sense of self-worth is what causes Mrs. Mallard to die due to her already weakened heart, after seeing her husband

Mrs. Mallard is described as weak and “Afflicted with a heart trouble.” The statement: “…great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death,” show how the narrator has a tone of tenderness, talking about Mrs. Mallard as if she were a fragile child, even later saying, “[she shook], as a child who had cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.” Throughout this whole scene, the language is riddled with foreboding adjectives and phrases, perhaps foreshadowing her later demise. When she learns of her husband’s death, she weeps “with sudden, wild abandonment,” only going to her room when “the storm of grief had passed.” Then once in her room she sat in an armchair “pressed down by physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.” This statement gives the physical exhaustion the same qualities one would normally give to a ghost, furthering the foreboding nature of the piece.

In the short story “The Story of an Hour” written by Kate Chopin, the character Mrs. Mallard is a grieving wife who pictures her life by herself. While grieving her husband’s death, she is thinking about being free and independent. Mrs. Mallard and women in the days where they depended on their husbands to provide for the family, while they stayed home and took care of the house. “But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would be hers absolutely.” (Chopin 548) She was a sympathetic character who loved her husband but is ready to be free. Mrs. Mallard’s reactions to Mr. Mallard’s death is justified by the way she grieves for him. The way she is dealing with the loss of her husband is admirable, even though in the end it kills her.

Anyone who receives notice of a loved ones death is never expected to take it lightly. In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” Mrs. Mallard is informed of her husbands “death” as gently as possible, and immediately she understands the enormous significance this loss will have on her life. Unlike many widow’s, her feelings of utter devastation do not last. Mrs. Mallard’s sobs of loss turn to cries of joy after she reflects upon her own character and discovers truths about her marriage.

Mallard struggles to come to terms with her husband’s death while also finding out what it means for her future. In the beginning Mrs. Mallard is told of her husband’s death “with the inability to accept its significance.” meaning that his death means more and will affect her life in more ways than the obvious(38). As she processes her grief Mrs. Mallard realizes that his death will give her an escape from under his control. Chopin says Mrs. Mallard is “young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength.

She was heartbroken, to begin with, but realizing that between her husband and her there was not much love and their marriage had already been falling apart since the beginning made her mixed emotions that she was feeling a change. She accepted that her husband had passed away but when Chopin says "she did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance." and most women do not tend to react the same way that she did but because most women did not have to go through what she did. Times were different but that still does not change the fact that her husband had to leave her at home keeping her as a housewife. That made her feel lonely and sad, which was affecting her heart trouble making it worse. When they find out that after all her husband was fine and he had not passed away Mrs. Mallard was in the room looking out the window, not knowing yet that her husband was still alive, Chopin says "when the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease of the joy that kills." (Chopin 2). She died happy knowing that her husband was gone. Mrs. Mallard wanted to be independent women but could not which was why she was very happy to know that now she was free to become that independent woman she has been wanting to be. She finally had freedom because her husband never made it on time to tell her that he was fine and that

Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” is a short story about a young woman, Mrs. Mallard, who is told that her husband has died in a tragic accident. She responds dramatically but in a completely understandable way that relates to her current situation. However, once she isolates herself in her room she begins to feel different emotions that do not usually accompany the unexpected death of a loved one. She tries to fight these oncoming positive feelings about her husband’s death, but she fails, and they push through, and she can hardly contain her excitement. The story ends with her husband showing up clearly not dead.

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.

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.

Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour is a brilliant short story of irony and emotion. The story demonstrates conflicts that take us through the character’s emotions as she finds out about the death of her husband. Without the well written series of conflicts and events this story, the reader would not understand the depth of Mrs. Mallard’s inner conflict and the resolution at the end of the story. The conflict allows us to follow the emotions and unfold the irony of the situation in “The Story of an Hour.”

“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.

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

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 short piece by Kate Chopin, ‘The Story of an Hour’, is about a sickly wife who finds out the news of her husband’s death, which seem to make her happy that she is liberated from the husband’s controlling ways, even though she is supposed to be really sad and in grief. The story is about a protagonist, who undergoes certain changes throughout the story’s continuity. The irony of the story is how the author ends the book. We expect that since the woman, Mrs. Mallard is supposed to be happy all through, the twist with which the book ends with is that of her dying. Her happiness killed her.