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

Literature, often has a moral message embedded in it, the theme plays a crucial role to serve as a reflection of humanity actions. The concept of free will vs. fate, argues whether an individual has the choice to determine their future in a society that has already cast one’s fate. In theory, fate constrained free will by assigning each individual a role at birth, thus enforcing a stereotype to shape the individual life. On the contrary, free will states that an individual has the right to escape their fate; that freedom cannot and shall not be molded nor destroyed. Regardless of the individual characteristics or background, society will try, and fail at regulating free will. In “The Story of the Hour”, Kate Chopin presents the reader with

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” focuses on sixty minutes in the life of a young nineteenth-century woman, Mrs. Mallard. Upon learning of her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard experiences an epiphany about her future without a husband. Her life, due to heart problems, suddenly ends after she unexpectedly finds out her husband is actually alive. Mrs. Mallard’s actions cause the reader to cogitate a hidden meaning weaved into Kate‘s short story. Chopin had an idea that women felt confined in their marriages, and the idea is brought out through the protagonist’s initial reaction, excessive joy, and new perspective of the world following the upsetting news.

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.

“The Story of an Hour” was published in 1894 during this time women started to fight more for their rights. Women didn’t have near the same rights as men because of the patriarchal society of the time. This patriarchy has a major effect on the story because women were seen as the property of men. Mr. Mallard’s death gave Mrs. Mallard an opportunity at being independent and free. When Mrs. Mallard receives the information that her husband is dead, she goes to her room to

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

“The Story of an Hour” may well be a reflection on how most women felt about their marriage in that era. The Author relates Mrs. Mallard’s story but not in first person, it is revealed through the voice of a narrator. However, the narrator is not an observer and knows for the most part that Louise did not love her husband. It is obvious the narrator knows more than can be physically observed but the author never reveals exactly what the protagonist is

“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

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

Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor discusses many topics and insights that can be found in literature. Foster explains how each are used and the purposes they serve while providing numerous examples. Many of Foster’s insights can be found in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of An Hour” which was written during a time in history when women were often restricted by society and marriage. The story speaks of a woman who felt freed from the burden of marriage when she thought her husband died, only to die the moment she realized he was actually alive. Foster’s insights about weather, heart disease, and flight that are evident in “The Story of An Hour” greatly influence the story’s interpretation in several ways.

In the short story, “The Story of an Hour,” author Kate Chopin presents the character of Mrs. Louis Mallard. She is an unhappy woman trapped in her discontented marriage. Unable to assert herself or extricate herself from the relationship, she endures it. The news of the presumed death of her husband comes as a great relief to her, and for a brief moment she experiences the joys of a liberated life from the repressed relationship with her husband. The relief, however, is short lived. The shock of seeing him alive is too much for her bear and she dies. The meaning of life and death take on opposite meaning for Mrs. Mallard in her marriage because she lacked the courage to stand up for herself.

Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” is a story of the feeling of losing someone with a different twist. Mrs. Mallard, a woman who has heart trouble, receives the news that her husband died in a “railroad disaster”, by her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend, a newspaper worker, named Richard (Chopin 307). She begins to let it occur to her that her husband is dead and accept the thought of it. Chopin uses the theme of closure to express the feelings of Mrs. Mallard in coping with the thought of the death of her husband. “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin uses the theme of closure to tell the story because it explains to the readers the feelings that Mrs. Mallard has when she receives the news that her husband is dead; the story starts with the feeling of grief, then closure, and then the over joy that Mrs. Mallard is feeling.

Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” tries to shed light on the conflict between women and a society that assign gender roles using a patriarchal approach. Specifically Margaret Bauer highlights, that most of Chopin’s works revolves around exploring the “dynamic interrelation between women and men, women and patriarchy, even women and women” (146). Similarly, in “The Story of an Hour” Chopin depicts a society that oppresses women mostly through the institution of marriage, as women are expected to remain submissive regardless of whether they derive any happiness. The question of divorce is not welcome, and it is tragic that freedom of women can only be realized through death. According to Bauer, the society depicted in Chopin’s story

In the past many decades the definition of what a marriage means changed dramatically in some areas. For the author of both stories, Kate Chopin, she wanted the reader to get something out of the story. She likes to explore all types of themes in her stories such as, racism, the roles of women, and adultery. With these themes and messages she struggled to have most of her stories published. In many of her stories she passed along these messages through the manner of a marriage. In her short stories “The Story of an Hour” and “Desiree 's Baby” she showed just how different marriages could be as well as how similar they can be. Chopin portrays the lives of the main characters, Louise Mallard from “The Story of An Hour” and Desiree Aubigny