“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, is a short story of overwhelming events that all lead up to Louise Mallard’s death. Louise Mallard, who has heart problems, is told by her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richard that her husband has died in a railroad accident only to soon find out that her husband is alive and did not have any involvement in the accident. Josephine and Richard both know of Louise’s heart trouble so, “great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible” the news of Mr. Mallard’s death (1). Louise spent no time being in denial with the news; she immediately sobbed into her sister’s arms. Shortly after, Louise leaves her sister and Richard to be alone with her feelings in her room.
Here is when the rising action of the story starts to create itself by a chain of imagery events. Louise arrives to her room and faces an open window and sinks into a comfortable armchair. She observes the “new spring life” and smells the “delicious breath of rain” (1). The narrator uses imagery to symbolize Louise’s new-found peace, freedom, and happiness. It is after when the narrator presents the steps leading up to the climax – Louise finally hits realization.
She feels this emotion “approaching to possess her”, she recognizes that now “there would be no one to live for”, and decides that she was finally free (2). Soon after, Louise goes back downstairs with her sister Josephine, who begged her to leave her room, and now the readers reach the climax.
When Louise is given the news of her husband’s death by her sister and a family friend Richard she “wept with sudden abandon” without questioning the validity of the news as others may have done. She accepted the news and wept in the arms of her sister Josephine.
Emotions expressed in an author’s writing is a part of them written on paper. Every writer expresses themselves differently, and this is not a curse but a blessing. As the reader, I am able to grasp the emotion of the author during the moments of writing such stories. I can, not only, feel the emotion, but also understand why the emotion was felt. A great writer can pull any reader into “their world.” Kate Chopin’s A Story of an Hour is a grand example of this ability, as well as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown. As I read these stories, I could not help but be forced into the scene the story is taking place. I took in, not only, the tone and theme of the stories, but both stories are also suspenseful. Therefore, I was unable to break free and the tone of the stories rattled in my brain.
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.
“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, is a short novel about Louise Mallard accepting that her husband had recently suffered a life ending tragedy. She quickly gets over the devastating news and begins to look forward to what the future has on hold for her. When she goes downstairs to meet up with Richard she sees her husband, Brently Mallard, in the front door alive and she ends up dying.
“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
In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, a woman receives the news about her husband’s death. The protagonist is Louise Mallard, she is at home with her sister. It seems that Mrs. Mallard is never alone because of her “heart trouble”. Close relatives always try to take care and keep her safe and healthy. People know about her health condition, but no one knows what is happening in her mind and spirit, and no one knows that her “heart trouble” is not only physical but also emotional. Louise has the opportunity, for the first time in her life, of living with freedom because now the man who rules her life is gone. Louise Mallard is born again, and she starts a short but glorious moment that gives her a true life sense and liberty, but then it is ended with the presence of her husband who comes back to kill the new Louise.
The loss of a loved one should bring about an overwhelming feeling of loneliness and depression. In The Story of an Hour, written by Kate Chopin in 1894, the protagonist, Louise Mallard, has to deal with the apparent death of her husband Brently. Brently Mallard is suspected to have died in an accident near a railroad, but the information about his death is false. Due to the lack of technology, his family is misinformed about him and the story follows Louise Mallard in her final moments. After thinking about her future without Brently, Louise is startled by his reappearance and the shock causes her to die of heart disease. Her death is foreshadowed earlier in the story when the author characterizes Louise as “afflicted with a heart trouble” (Chopin). One would infer that when a couple reaches the highest stage of a relationship (marriage) that their connection and bond has become too powerful to be questioned. Although in some instances this theory may be true, one can never be too sure about the emotions and feelings of others even if marriage is a binding factor. Kate Chopin uses symbols and characterization within The Story of an Hour to demonstrate the uncertainty in relationships. Symbols in The Story of an Hour bring meaning and understand to the enriched short story. Louise locked herself in her room after the news of her husband and as she look out the window “she could see....the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life.” (Chopin). The new spring
The representation of marriage and gender parts portrayed in the America short stories the Necklace by Guy De Maupassan The Short story of a Hour by Kate Chopin are short stories which uncover many viewpoints seen in the human intuitive convictions. These stories demonstrate how the male characters assume the primary part in marriage as the dominant ones and their partners, the females taking up the weaker parts. The women in these stories are portrayed as unsteady person who are inclined to fantasy, feeble and precarious consequently they are general human creatures who are incapable. By analyzing the significant themes, style and contents in these two stories particularly on the female psyche, one has the capacity see what matters which exists between the genders parts particularly inside the connection of marriage. The major artistic hypothesis which can bests elucidate this idea is the one on psychoanalysis. With the point of accomplishing the right psychoanalysis of the significant characters in these stories, the originals of the mental methodology will first be talked about and the personal significance it has on these two short story authors.
"The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin is an example of a strained romantic relationship and the quest for identity. Mrs. Mallard has a romantic yet strained love with her presumbably dead husband. It is strained because she, "had loved him--sometimes." but,"often, she had not". This is because she felt his assertion and domanice was used to control and trap her. In assuming that she was free from this, she began to see herself in the future having "all sorts of days that would be her own" and her new identity that would come with it.
In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, has a multitude of stylistic and structural techniques that make the emphasis of the drama in this short story. This story only cover one hour of Mrs. Mallard's life, it begins at the time they make her conscious about her husband's death until the end of the story an hour later. We are able to see how women's role have been changing, Chopin explains how a woman feel like it required for them to stay home even if they aren't happy. Josephine has to tell Mrs. Mallard the news and about her husband's death and her reaction was very ironic something that the reader wasn't expecting.
“Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, exemplifies the inner conflict of many women during the late nineteenth century, living in a suppressed patriarchal society, without the freedom and individuality afforded the men of this era. The story conveyed the theme of conflict between a displayed public identity and a suppressed private identity through point of view, and symbolism, and plot development.
"The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin, shows a negative view on marriage for women by expressing a character that is ecstatic when her husband passes away after a traumatic railroad accident. In the story "The story of an hour, Richards and Josephine must tell Louise Mallard that her husband passed away in a traumatic railroad accident. Due to her heart trouble, Richards and Josephine have to break it to her very easily so she does not have heart attack. Instead of Louise being upset about him passing she becomes tremendously excited about all the freedom she now has, but everyone in the story thinks she is deeply upset. After a few minutes they hear a knock on the door and turn to find out, Mr. Mallard was alive. Louise with sadness and despair falls to the floor and dies.
Selina Jamil, an English professor at Prince George’s Community College. Selina argued that Louise, “At the sight of her husband she is at once profoundly aware of her newfound freedom and the fact that it will not last. The shock that kills her must, then, be the realization that she has lost this freedom, and with it her human individuality” (Jamil 220). In other words, Louise’s death was not caused by “joy that kills” from reuniting with her husband, but rather it was caused by her growing awareness of the current situation. Louise came to a realization that reunion with her husband implicates losing her own individuality, meaning that she is reverted back to her old life, submitting under her husband’s “powerful will”. Louise’s dream of becoming an independent individual is destroyed. The powerful emotion spreads throughout her body, rendering her thoughts to go
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
Have you ever read a story about a woman who is ecstatic to hear of her husband’s death? "The Story of an Hour" is a short story in which Kate Chopin, the author, presents an often unheard of view of marriage. An analysis of “The Story of an Hour” faces us with one unanswered question. Why was Ms. Millard overfilled with joy after hearing the passing of her husband’s death? The answer is quite simple. She was overcome with joy due to the fact that she was trapped and finally had the opportunity to taste freedom. I believe the question, “Death caused by love or joy?” has been overlooked and has not been analyzed in complete depth. Many readers assume that Mrs. Millard passed away upon hearing the arrival of her husband because she