The Story Of An Hour By Kate Chopin

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.

“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 uses another symbol, Mrs. Mallard’s bad heart, early on in The Story of an Hour. Mrs. Mallard afflicted with heart trouble is a symbol of how broken-hearted and trapped she is in her marriage. Her heart trouble is the first thing the reader learns about her so, presumably, this will play a key role throughout the story. In her bedroom, she has a sense of freedom which makes her blood pump furiously. Mrs. Mallard, shocked that her husband is alive, dies of heart disease. “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease- of the joy that kills” (Chopin). Her heart condition could be physical, as well as psychological. An article written by Ann Woodlief states:

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.

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 Over years the roles of women and their rights have drastically changed. They have been dominated, trapped and enslaved by their marriage. Womens have slowly evolved into individuals that have rights and could stand for their own. “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin might be a short story, but it showed and explained how women's felt obligated to live and be with their husbands, despite the fact that they were unhappy with them.

By all accounts, this is not a typical story of a battered wife longing for freedom from her vindictive husband. A woman does not need to be have a blatantly cruel or abusive husband to feel trapped, or unhappy. She should not need the presence of violence for these feelings to be validated. Sometimes, it is simply the absence of choice. And, for Louise – the main character in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” – it takes the untimely demise of her husband for her to realize her subconscious, intrinsic longing: freedom. True freedom and rebirth, symbolized in both setting, and surroundings, is within her grasp. For someone in Louise’s position, in her time period, freedom as we know it today is

Death is a common concept with common reactions. Society expects the response to the death of a spouse to be one of tears, depression, and years of mourning. However, the first time someone feels relief or happiness at the news of his or her spouse’s death is suddenly viewed as inappropriate, so it must be kept on the inside. The problem is that the reason behind the happiness is often forgotten to be analyzed. What was happening behind closed doors? What was the marriage representing? Mrs. Mallard is an important example of this in Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour. She just received the news of her husband’s death and is obliged to weep at once. Nevertheless, once she gets away from the pressure of the onlookers, she finds more happiness than sadness in which she cannot fully express outside of her room. Therefore, the main conflict originates with the gender issues shown throughout the text. These issues include a married woman’s identity loss, entrapment, and feeling of being unloved.

"The Story of an Hour" is about a young lady, named Mrs. Mallard. The story describes of how she is heartbroken, upon hearing of her husband's death. The buddy of Mrs. Mallard's messaged this tragic news. However, Mrs. Mallard's sister was the one who told her. What happens next is a bit unusual. Mrs. Mallard goes to her room and starts to feel something new. It is, actually, a feeling of relief. Now, Mrs Mallard thinks that she has the rest of her life just for herself.

“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 short story, “Story of an Hour”, Kate Chopin writes about a woman with heart

Mary Astell, a sixteenth-century English writer, once stated: “If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?” Undeniably, since the beginning of time women have been enslaved by society’s unwritten mandate for a woman’s life: find an agreeable suitor, marry, produce children and be the perfect housewife, at risk of being deemed abnormal if these actions are not accomplished by a certain age. In the short story “The Story of an Hour”, author Kate Chopin illustrates a woman’s sundry emotions upon hearing of her husband’s death. To the woman’s own surprise, she experiences feelings of relief and a newfound freedom. Having lived in the 19th century, Chopin challenged society’s perception of women at the time in this honest, liberating drama.

The Story of an Hour deals with language and sentence structures to help revel the true untreated emotions that all the characters feel inside. The story also displays the inner mental strains of women whom were restrained and undervalued by unacceptable social expectations upon marriage. This story is about Mrs. Mallard’s husband’s death that turned into her freedom. Mrs. Mallard was both depressed and repressed. Mrs. Mallard thought she had found her way but in the end her husband was alive and that shock, made her pass away.

Kate Chopin is a very creative author not only is she creative in her literature but also very realistic. She will help you comprehend how a person in an unhappy marriage would rather live their lives and the changes that will have to be made to be able to live that life. “Story of an hour” is one of her stories that speaks upon how it would be if her husband was to actually pass away, how everything would be so much better and how much happier she would be without him. “The storm” is a little different but not so much. The storm explains how theirs a sense of freedom that all of the character crave. Both of these stories have to do with change and freedom. In order to be happy you have to go through change and also be free from certain things and people. This is Kate Chopin’s view of finding happiness in an unsatisfied marriage.

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