Character Analysis of Mrs. Mallard in Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour Mrs. Mallard Chopn’s main character in “The Story of an Hour”, has under gone the loss of her husband Mr. Mallard. The story depicts that she has been contemplating through different feeling about the situation. Mrs. Mallard may start off as a timed wife, however through the death of her husband sorrow and sadness turns to freedom and respite. Mrs. Mallard knows and understands the way how women should be treated like. Her thoughts and decisions are anything but just and ethically correct. She has not been fully experiencing the joy that marriage should have brought. She felt the death of her husband as the beginging of her new world. Her dream and excitement of entering …show more content…
Mallard’s decision of being happy about her husband’s death was very wise and correct because that was a window of opportunity to gain her freedom back. Now she realizes that she will be able to make her own decisions and choices. Even though great care was given to her due to her heart problem, her husband still has controlled upon her life. Freedom is what motivates Mrs. Mallard to be happy with her husband’s death. She is fighting her feeling for her freedom because she has not had freedom at all, rather she was suffering from emotional and physical abuse. However, it was a false rumor htat her husband was dead and as soon as she sees him as she was stepping down the stairs, she passed away. This is because she knows that her freedom and her joyful future is being take naway. Mrs. Mallard’s craving or freedom shows that she was abused in her …show more content…
Mallard repeatedly says “free, free, free!” this statement tells us that even though her marriage appears to be relatively satisfied, what seems more significant to her is her freedom from her husband. She now realizes that her life is free from anything, beause she was experiencing both physical and emotional cruelty from her supposedly husband. One of the outcomes of her husband’s death is to live for herself. In the story, it says that “There stood, facing the open window, a confortable, roomy rmchair”. The open window indicates the importance of her freedom. Now her husband is gone, and she starts to see that life will be
Mrs. Mallard?s freedom did not last but a few moments. Her reaction to the news of the death of her husband was not the way most people would have reacted. We do not know much about Mr. And Mrs. Mallards relationship. We gather from the text that her freedom must have been limited in some way for her to be feeling this way. Years ago women were expected to act a certain way and not to deviate from that. Mrs. Mallard could have been very young when she and Brently were married. She may not have had the opportunity to see the world through a liberated woman?s eyes and she thought now was her chance.
Mrs Mallard, much like Frank Hurley, became aware of the endless possibilities her life could offer following her sudden and eye opening discovery. The realisation of her husbands supposed death inspires the repetition “Free, free, free!” outlining the embracing of her new found freedom as a means of breaking the shackles of her old married life, and plunging into her new life free of the “blind persistence”. Furthermore, the imagery of the open window, “she could see in the open square…all aquiver with new spring life” also symbolises her newfound individuality but more so emphasises the reclamation of her individuality and a new life that solely belongs to her, which stood as a revolutionary concept related to the context of the story as the ninetieth century was an era that limited the progress of women. This imagery also acts as a means of the protagonist escaping the one dimensional “square” of her marriage and truly experiencing all life has to offer for the first time, consequently demonstrating the ways in which discoveries transform and encourage individuals to acquire a new outlook on
In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, is a clear example of how Mrs. Mallard will not recognize that she feels like a prisoner, but the moment she knows that her husband is “dying”, she feels freedom instead of sadness. Mrs. Mallard has a heart disease and Richards try to tell her the news carefully so she won’t suffer an attack. The house is her place but she feels like a prisoner and after the news she feels like is she is release from the house. She is happy but when she sees her husband on the door she feel like everything will go back to the way it was. Mrs. Mallard is a women with thoughts about her freedom, she will imagine about what she will ever want, she will look outside the window and look at the new life. explore the men’s world.
Mallard says ,“There would be no one to live for during these coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature”. We can imply that Mrs. Mallard is imagining a life without her husband. Where she has individuality and control over her life decisions. You can conclude that in her marriage her husband has full control over her and she has little freedom.
is also oppressed by the circumstances within her marriage. Mrs. Mallard however suppressed her feelings and of unhappiness and in which the story implies puts stress on her heart. The announcement of her husband death brings on conflicting feelings of grief and joy. Mrs. Mallard paradoxical statement about the death of her husband changes her perception about life. “She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
When Mrs. Mallard finds her husband passes she was only sad for a short time. Part of the idea that her relationship was unhealthy because she begins chanting after a short time, “ Free! Body and soul free!” (477). She starts seeing opportunities that she could have without him.
Mrs. Mallard was at first overjoyed with freedom because her husband was supposedly “dead,” yet at the end of the story, Mrs. Mallard comes face to face with Mr. Mallard. A whole new wave of emotions overcame Mrs. Mallard as she laid eyes on her husband instantly killing her from “a heart disease-of joy that kills.” It is ironic how Mrs. Mallard is overjoyed about her husband’s death, and she ended up dying because she found out he was alive instead. Her joy literally was killed, killing her on the inside as
At the end, Mrs. Mallard was in sudden shock about her husband not being dead killing her with joy. The ironic part about the story was that she was relieved to be free from the thought husband deaf. And later knowing about his falsify death an hour of meditating gave her a heart attack of “joy” freeing her still of her marriage from over thinking about no longer seeing her
Most women in Mrs Mallard’s situation were expected to be upset at the news of her husbands death, and they would worry more about her heart trouble, since the news could worsen her condition. However, her reaction is very different. At first she gets emotional and cries in front of her sister and her husbands friend, Richard. A little after, Mrs. Mallard finally sees an opportunity of freedom from her husbands death. She is crying in her bedroom, but then she starts to think of the freedom that she now has in her hands. “When she abandoned herse...
“She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arm’s”, shows that the tone was of despair and heartache. Though, as the sights and sounds of spring reveal themselves through the window, the tone dramatically changes to a tasteful, newfound youth. The thoughts of “delicious breath of rain” or “notes of a distant song” bring the feeling of livelihood to one. Then, the words “Free, free, free!”, express Mrs. Mallard’s realization that her life from now on is her own, and will not be succumbed to the needs and wishes of her husband. Her pulse increases and her chest rises with fervor, as she “recognizes this thing that was approaching to posses her”, which depicts how the tone, once again is about to change.
The protagonists of The Story of an Hour are Mrs. Mallard and Josephine. Mrs. Mallard “was afflicted with a heart trouble, and great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible” (1), as she heard the news of her husband’s death. When it happens, Mrs. Mallard seems genuinely sad, but then the reader figures out she is happy about being able to start a new life. Mrs. Mallard is the main protagonist because all of the attention is on her.
Mallard tries to suppress this because she knows during this time, society will never understand or accept the fact that a woman can live an independent life while being happy. Often times, a woman identity was through the person who she marries. This was evident in this story because Mrs. Mallard, the main character of this story was never given a full name, while her husband, a minor character was. Through the lines “she was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her” she ultimately describe the feeling of being independent and free as being a sin, something that she be avoided at all cost. Although she tries hard to suppressed this feeling, she let it consume her.
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.
In “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin describes to her readers a young woman’s response to her husband’s death, or at least his presumed death. The opinions readers will draw from this story will vary from person to person due to personal experiences. The experience and wisdom that I have gained through the trails and tribulations of my life help me to understand, relate, and even despise Mrs. Mallard’s character. On one hand, I feel pity for Mrs. Mallard. I think she felt trapped in a situation that she found to be inescapable. She felt lonely, restless, and did not know how to help herself. Yet, on the other hand, I do not feel sorry for her character. Almost immediately after finding out that her husband is dead, she rejoices at her newfound freedom. I think that her actions portray in her a selfish and cowardly nature.
The first reader has a guided perspective of the text that one would expect from a person who has never studied the short story; however the reader makes some valid points which enhance what is thought to be a guided knowledge of the text. The author describes Mrs. Mallard as a woman who seems to be the "victim" of an overbearing but occasionally loving husband. Being told of her husband's death, "She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance." (This shows that she is not totally locked into marriage as most women in her time). Although "she had loved him--sometimes," she automatically does not want to accept, blindly, the situation of being controlled by her husband. The reader identified Mrs. Mallard as not being a "one-dimensional, clone-like woman having a predictable, adequate emotional response for every life condition." In fact the reader believed that Mrs. Mallard had the exact opposite response to the death her husband because finally, she recognizes the freedom she has desired for a long time and it overcomes her sorrow. "Free! Body and soul free! She kept whispering." We can see that the reader got this idea form this particular phrase in the story because it illuminates the idea of her sorrow tuning to happiness.