Story Of An Hour Analysis

Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of An Hour,” emotionally illustrates the hour in which a young woman with a heart condition finds out her husband has been killed in a mining accident. In the beginning, she grieves over the loss of her husband, but she soon becomes relieved and joyous when she realizes that she is now free. However, her husband returns after having been far from the mines for the day and her heart problems return and she dies. Kate Chopin was an early feminist author and was well acquainted with death after losing many siblings as a child, her husband (who left her a large amount of debt), and her mother with whom she was very close. As a means of therapy, Chopin took up writing and her ideas about feminism and death are very clear. In “The Story of An Hour,” Chopin uses multiple symbols and an allusion to a Greek god to illustrate and support the idea that male oppression harms the souls and lives of women.

In Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour,” a whirlwind of events occur in a short amount of time. The story begins with the protagonist, Louise Mallard, being told that her husband has died from a railroad disaster. She grieves for a while and then goes upstairs to her room. She stares out an open window for a while until she realizes that she is finally free. She is liberated by her newfound freedom, but unfortunately, Mrs. Mallard’s freedom is snatched away from her in the matter of moments because, surprise, Mr. Mallard was nowhere near the railroad disaster. Once Mrs. Mallard discovers that Mr. Mallard is alive, she dies from a heart attack. This dynamic short story takes place in only an hour. One may ask how could this short of a story can have such an expansive array of events occur, but the answer is simple. The plot of “The Story of an Hour” is able to unfold quickly due to Chopin’s use of irony, her heavy use of symbolism, and the time period in which she wrote.

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

Being a woman has not always come with the freedoms like it does today. Kate Chopin portrays an image of the life of women in the nineteenth century in her famous short essay, “The Story of an Hour.” She describes the feelings of a woman after learning about the death of her husband. The woman becomes overwhelmed with emotions, she is upset but at the same time feels a sense of relief. “The Story of an Hour” is a wonderful, highly recommended essay because of how it displays the emotions that were hidden by most women during that time period.

The short story “The Story of An Hour” written by Kate Chopin is a story centered around the main character, Mrs.Mallard. The main character, Louise Mallard, also known as Mrs.Mallard, is finally set free from a miserable and sorrowful marriage and is able to grasp a hold of the freedom she was in search of during her times of misery. Mrs.Mallard had three major issues in this short story; 1.) She disliked her husband 2.) She struggled with heart/ health issues and 3.)

“The Story of an Hour” is one of many short stories written by Kate Chopin. I believe there are numerous symbols in this story, but the one I think stands out the most for me is Mrs. Mallard’s heart trouble. The first line of the story starts out with “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble.” (Chopin 1) While this can be read as physical heart troubles, the more you read into the story, it reflects on emotional heart trouble as well. If you take the statement by Mrs. Mallard, “Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering, (Chopin 2) it reflects that her heart and soul are free from the strains for her husband. In the end her emotional heart trouble was so great, she could not overcome the site of her husband and the

In her article Kate Chopin’s View on Death and Freedom in The Story of an Hour, Xuemei Wan proposes that Kate Chopin The Story of an Hour expresses birth and death, psychology of Mrs. Mallard, and freedom. The Story of an Hour written by the American woman writer, Kate Chopin (1851-1904) fully shows us the tremendous conflict between life and death among those women who had more self-awareness. Who had less social living space according to the established social norms 100 years ago in a dramatic way. The heroine’s strong desire for freedom and sudden death. This reminds us of the philosophical thought on life and death of Zhuangzi, ancient Chinese thinker, Martin Heidegger, which deconstruct and transcend the conflict between them, and many more. In this essay, I will be critiquing Xuemei Wen article showing the strengths, weaknesses, and notable features.

The Story of an Hour," by Kate Chopin is the tragic story of a woman whose newfound position as a widow gives her strength. She develops a sense of freedom as she embraces her husband's death as an opportunity to establish her own identity. The tragedy is when her newfound identity gets stripped away as the appearance of her husband reveals that he is still alive. The disappointment from this tragedy kills her with a heart attack symbolizing the many conflicts that she faced throughout the story. The conflicts the character faces within herself and society show that the social norms for women were suppressing to their strength and individuality as human beings.

In the short story "The Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin, the author, presents the reader with an obscure view of marriage. Chopin's main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard, experiences the excitement of freedom instead of the devastation of loneliness after she receives the news of her husband's death. Mrs. Mallard disturbingly finds out that Brently, her husband is still alive. She know knew that her only chance at freedom is gone. The disappointment instantly kills Mrs. Mallard. Published in the late 1800s, the overbearing nature of marriage presented in "The Story of an Hour" may very well reflect, but not restricted to, that era.

The short story “Story Of An Hour” written by Kate Chopin is considered as a scandalous story of political reflection and unethical message about a woman, who is told that her husband has been in a fatal car crash. After receiving the news she walks off and stares into the window and smiles. Professor reading this would think that the window is a symbol of freedom, and once she steps out in the new world she is free as a bird. ” Scandalous” is what reporters would say in this era because a woman without a man had as much hope in making it in the world, as a dog that could did not bark around strangers. It’s possible, but it never happens.

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

In the short story “The Story of an Hour,” a young women, Mrs. Mallard, had heard about her husband’s death, she felt rathered relieved by the news. Is that such a bad thing to feel? She felt grief but then real life hit her, the life of a struggling women in a patriarchal society, and she was happy he was gone. In Kate Chopin’s story, she shows many examples of regionalism, realism, naturalism, and romanticism.

Feeling trapped can make you seek freedom more and more. At first in the story Mrs. Mallard wants freedom. It seemed like a terrible thing to her. She was restricted in a lot of ways. Mrs. Mallard was restricted due to her marriage and due to her bad heart. Even in her home she feels restricted.

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin describes an hour in the life of an oppressed woman bound by marriage in the nineteenth century. It is only when Mrs. Mallard’s husband dies in a sudden railroad accident that she realizes she is no longer tied together by the ropes of man. At first she is shocked and horrified by the tragedy, for she did say “she had loved him – sometimes” (Chopin). However, once the tears were wept, a new bountiful life of freedom was now in the eyes of Mrs. Mallard. Chopin uses imagery, third person omniscient point of view, and concepts of relief and joy in “The Story of an Hour” to convey the true feelings of Mrs. Mallard as she is freed from the strenuous and unjust oppression of women due to society’s expectation of gender roles.

In life, but especially in literature, we find many cases which we can see, if we study them,