Death as Freedom: Analyzing Kate Chopin's 'The Story on An Hour'

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Kate Chopin wrote the short story “The Story on An Hour” in 1894, during a time in American history where women were still fighting for their political, financial, and social freedom. The main character, Mrs. Mallard, appears to be one of these women also yearning for her liberation, and briefly believing she has been granted it when hearing of her husband’s death. Quit possibly the most significant symbol in this short story is death, symbolizing the ultimate form of freedom. The shortly freed Mrs. Mallard is teased with freedom throughout our time looking into her life, from square sitting in front of her home, to the open window she is said to be looking out of. These literary symbols were chosen to lead readers to believe the ending will be that of liberation. Situational irony is used at the end of this story to give readers a sense of confusion as opposed to our own freedom from the story. We as readers are inclined to give …show more content…

Mallard loses her new freedom when she learns that her husband was not actually lost in a train accident. By ending the story the opposite of what readers anticipate, we are made to think more deeply about why the author chose to do this. One reason for ending this way is to, in a sense, take the reader’s freedom. Instead of having a feeling of closure we must mentally dive deeper to uncover any hidden meaning in the story. “The Story of An Hour” contains symbols and uses situational irony to encourage the reader to give more thought to the meaning of the story. Symbols used here lead us to believe the main character longs for her own person freedom, which is true for women in the real world during this same time period. Again the theme of freedom is brought up at the end with the use of situation irony. Chopin could have easily been inspired by events taking place in her personal life when all women had a lack of freedom compared to males in the same

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