Story Of An Hour Analysis

The definition of freedom, according to Dictionary.com, is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. In the declaration of independence, American citizens are given freedom of speech, freedom of religion, right to vote, right to a fair trial, and freedom of assembly to name a few. These rights that we have enable us to form communities and have our voices heard regarding issues that negatively impact us as a whole or prevent us from moving towards a brighter and hopeful future because that is what freedom is. It is about hope. It is about being your own person without hesitation, without judgement. “The Story of an Hour” written by Kate Chopin and “A&P” written by John Updike encounter two very

Many refer to Chopin’s stories as having a unique approach to worldwide issues and concerns. Chopin doesn’t want to change the world; all she wants is to describe it as best she could through her pieces of literature. She wants to expose the truth about the lives of many women and men in the nineteenth-century and how challenging it really is. She uses an infinite amount of literary devices, including imagery, to show the reality of society’s situation back in the 18th century. In, "The Story of an Hour,” her main idea/theme is the pure formality of Freedom and Confinement for women through marriage. She portrays that by creating imagery throughout the story. For example, she gives the reader a sense of Mrs. Mallard's new life through the view of an “open window.” She wants her audience to experience what Mrs.Mallard was so that the readers will fully understand the severity of women’s situations then and now who have to go through the pain that Mrs.Mallard did every single day. Bob Marley once said that, “Beginnings are usually scary, and endings are usually sad, but it’s everything in between that makes it all worth living,” and in Mrs.Mallard’s case, that reigns true. The emotions she feels when she liberates from her tight chains of marriage became the reason she wants to live and to keep moving forward. That feeling makes her life worth living again, but then disaster strikes and that feeling vanishes along with her living, breathing self. Mrs.Mallard didn’t die of ‘joy that kills,’ she dies of the darkness of her past consuming every last breath she takes, and then... she’s

In the “Story of An Hour”, the main character, introduced as Mrs. Mallard, is traditional good girl that gets her first taste of freedom leading her diverging into the path that allows her to be free of the subjection she feels, however, these feelings are not lasting as society tries to make her return to her previous status before this taste. From the very beginning, Mrs. Mallard is illustrated as a faint hearted woman that needed to be protected from shocking events in fear of her health. In account of this in a slow way, her sister and her brother in law explains that her husband is in fact dead. Mrs. Mallard listens to this, “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would not have no one follow her” ( Chopin 1). This basically uncovers the underlying feelings that Mrs. Mallard has of having to act a certain way in front of society to meet their expectation, considering that within this situation the her sister is society, and she is the suppose to be a good wife that should feel sad about the fact that her husband has just died. With the way she acts specifically exclaiming that “she did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance”, it infers that she already has understand what the

The heart trouble symbol represents physical malady of unhappiness with the lack of freedom she has or have had with her life. This is the first thing we learn about Mrs. Mallard and we also learn that extra care is needed in order to reveal the truth to her. A person with such disease would not properly deal with the news. This tells us that Mrs. Mallard has a deep inner-life that is not connected to the outside world overall. The open window symbol represents the happiness and the new opportunities that are ahead of Mrs. Mallard. She looks at the bright sky to think about the freedom and hope that she has been longing for. She feels as if the open window is providing her with life itself. The open window brings in hope and outside of her room is alive and vibrant like her mind

In Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour”, the main character, Louise Mallard, is burdened with the news of her husband's death. As the story continues, readers believe that her actions are done out of grief, but when the reading is analyzed closer it is easy to see that Mrs. Mallard was not grief-stricken at all; she was quite the opposite. By clearly basing “The Story of an Hour” in its cultural context, Kate Chopin reveals a society steeped in the oppression of women.

In the book the story of an hour, it starts off saying how Mrs. Mallard has a heart condition, and they tried to break the news gently that her husband was now deceased. This task was given to her sister, Josephine. But, it seems as if she didn’t come straight out and tell her. When the story talked about “veiled hints”, which made me think about undercover meanings, or that she was trying to infer something without coming out and saying straight out that her husband was dead. Her husband’s friend had already heard about this news while in the newspaper office when the information about the railroad disaster was first received. His name was on the top of the list for the people that were killed. After hearing about this overwhelming news, she begins sobbing and goes to her room to be alone.

One event that illuminates the theme is the reaction of Mrs. Mallard who is heart-broken at first, but changes her thoughts on the situation as the story progresses. She speaks to herself and instills the idea of having freedom now that her husband has passed away. For instance, Chopin says, “She said it over and over under

In the article, “The Story of an Hour”, the author writes about how in marriages it can make you feel trapped and live a long sad life instead of wanting to live a long time. Throughout the story Mrs. Mallard hears about her husband’s death and how he was on the train that crashed. When she found out that her husband was dead she had a feeling of joy and freedom and started to look at the world in a different way. She was excited about life and wanted to continue pursuing her new life which had so much new positivity. At first she was paralysed from the news and went to her room to grief by herself, it was then that she realized how her new life will actually be better without her husband.

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is very intriguing, not only because of the emotional change Louise Mallard goes through the hour after her husband’s tragic death but also the way Chopin uses irony in the story. During this analysis of “The Story of an Hour” we will discuss the summary, plot, setting, tone, theme, point of view, emotions of Louise Mallard and other characters involved in the story. Chopin’s story uses the feelings of a married woman in the late 1890’s and feminine identities, to help the reader better understand married life of a woman during that period in time. In the story, Louise Mallard is a young woman with a heart condition who recently is informed of her husband’s death. At first she is sad and then a wonderful feeling begins to come over her, it is happiness; freedom, although she does not feel that for long. “She knew that she would weep again 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 2). “And yet she had loved him – sometimes. Often she had not” (Chopin 2). Kate Chopin uses nature imagery, irony and tragedy to set the theme; women’s role in a marriage and feminine identity. “Marriage was considered a sacred institution. Divorce was quite rare in the 1800s and if one was to occur; men were automatically given legal control of all property and children” (Hicks 1).

Mrs.Mallard’s first conflict, is internal, with herself and how she feels. Instead of most women who had just lost their husband, she looked out the window and saw not sad things, but all the beauty in the world, such as, “the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life,” and “The delicious breath of rain was in the air.” The reader can infer that Mrs.Mallard acts this way because she believes she is now free. She even whispers the words “free, free, free!” even though she knows that feeling this way isn’t right and she even believes that she will weep again when she sees “the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead.” So, even though Mrs.Mallard is

The passage above describes part of the main themes of the novel. The main two themes of the novel are the actions that we do; shape us and mold us into something different, then what we were in the first place. The second is when an individual becomes addicted to something it takes over that person’s life, forcing the individual to behave and do things that he or she would have never done before. Both main themes are seen throughout the book relating with two main characters. The first is protagonist’s mother, and the second is the main antagonist of the novel. The protagonist’s mother (whose name is not mentioned) starts the book as a normal person, but after she starts taking pain pills; she stops caring about everything but herself. The

In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin’s tells the story of a young women who feels trapped in a repressed marriage, who wants nothing more than to escape. Throughout the story it is revealed how the author feels about a marriage, it is a controlling society which denies women to have their own independence. However, the emotions that Mrs. Mallard was feeling was not of grief and sadness but of feeling relieved and full of joy at the thought of being “free” from the sudden death of her husband. In using different elements throughout the story, Chopin conveys this to her reader on several occasions. In the beginning of the story the reader would think it is heartbreaking.

In The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin, the plot twist is almost as shocking as the female suppression and emotional irony of the female character, Mrs. Mallard. Chopin writes to us on a woman experiencing the limitations society has forced upon her only due to her gender. Living in the eighteen hundreds, the role of a woman was short and sweet, and was to not exceed their allowed influence. Once married, your identity was enmeshed to your husband and therefor little to nonexistent. Kate depicts the mental struggle of Mrs. Mallard as she deals with an array of emotions after she hears the news of her husbands death.

The Story of an Hour, by Kate Chopin, describes a 19th century woman, Mrs. Mallard, who desires freedom both in her physical and spiritual being. It was in this period of time when the rights of women were almost nonexistent. Oppressed by her marriage, and without rights to request a divorce, Mrs. Mallard perceives her wedlock as shackles, depriving her need for independence. However, by slim chance, she is confronted with news that her husband is dead. Mrs. Mallard’s initial, central, and final responses to the news each significantly contrast one another, but collectively, they symbolize her spiritual transformation.

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Choplin is only one-thousand words long; yet there is strong character development throughout. It also has seemingly strong undertones of social issues, such as independence as a woman in the 1800s. Many of those in the literary field argue whether Choplin’s intention was to have underlaying tones of positivity and feminism, or if it is a story about irony told through a woman named Louise Mallard, a woman with heart troubles who “dies of happiness” when she finds out that her husband is in fact still alive. Lawrence I. Berkove argues the latter with refuting arguments and a close analysis of the text with evidence.