“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin
“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).
The point of view in Chopin’s short story, the narrator uses a non-participant approach to tell the story in third person point of view with limited omniscience. Whether or not the reader is more sympathetic with the narrator using first person depends on the story. In this story, I think the read...
... middle of paper ...
... Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 127. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Word Count:3263. From Literature Resource Center.
2. An overview of “The Story of an Hour”. Jennifer Hicks. Short Stories for Students. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Word Count: 1457. From Literature Resource Center.
3. Emotions in The Story of an Hour. S. Selina Jamil. The Explicator. 67.3 (Spring 2009) p215.Word Count: 2612. From Literature Resource Center.
4. Chopin's 'The Story of an Hour.'. Daniel P. Deneau. Explicator 61.4 (Summer 2003): p210-213. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Vol. 110. Detroit: Gale.Word Count: 1555. From Literature Resource Center.
5. Chopin, Kate. The Story of an Hour. 7th ed. Cengage Learning, 2010. 106-108. Print
...n & Co., Inc., 1962); excerpted and reprinted in Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 3, ed. Carolyn Riley (Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1975), p. 526.
Votteler, Thomas. Contemporary Literary Criticism Vol. 75, edited by Thomas Votteler, Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1993, p. 334-335.
Kate Chopin has style that makes her work seem more like a story told in person just for the reader than one written in a book to a diverse audience of potential readers. She tends to go into great detail over the thoughts and actions of characters, giving the reader insight they would not normally have, almost as if they were mind readers witnessing the event. When Chopin describes the situations her characters are in, she tends to utilize short, to the point sentences that are the bare minimum to cover said situation, followed by a very long sentence that expands upon the first. She also tends to use short sentences in quick succession to illustrate a point. Often these are character realizations, and it feels like a short train of thought leading to a conclusion within the character's mind. These sections usually use anaphora, the repetition pounding the ideas into the reader's head. As stated before, Chopin describes most everything in great detail. Her choice of words goes between passive observation and strong opinion. When describing scenery, she might describe the colors and situation of it, or she may become excited and give a fervent description polluted by the feelings of Edna, the main character. These changes in diction add to the story, and the reader is no longer a reader yet again. Instead, this style allows us to feel changes in the mood of the characters. Rather than being told “He was happy”, “He was passionate”, “He was apathetic”, the reader feels like they are entering the scene and tasting the mood themselves. This change in diction also tends to accompany a change in tone. In the beginning of the story, the tone was one of anticipation, as a patient child waiting for a caterpillar to ...
In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, it talks about marriage and a woman’s life in the 1800’s. This story illustrates the stifling nature of a woman’s role during this time through Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to her husband’s death. When Mrs. Mallard obtains news that her husband is dead, she is hurt after a brief moment and then she is delighted with the thought of freedom. This story shows how life was in the mid 1800’s and how women were treated around that time.
Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour. Kate Chopin was a Victorian writer whose writing manifests her life experiences. She was not happy with the principles of the time, because women had fewer rights, and they were not considered equal to men. Afraid of segregation from society, people lived in a hypocritical world full of lies; moreover, Kate Chopin was not afraid of segregation, and used her writing as a weapon against oppression of the soul.
“The Story of the Hour” by Kate Chopin portrays an opposing perspective of marriage by presenting the reader with a woman who is somewhat untroubled by her husbands death. The main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard encounters the sense of freedom rather than sorrow after she got knowledge of her husbands death. After she learns that her husband, Brently, is still alive, it caused her to have a heart attack and die. Even though “The Story of the Hour” was published in the eighteen hundreds, the views of marriage in the story could coincide with this era as well.
(May 1855): 554-568. Rpt. in Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed. Laurie Lanzen Harris. Vol. 10. Detroit: Gale Research, 1985.Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.
164-69. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 341. Detroit: Gale, 2013.Artemis Literary Sources. Web. 5 May 2014.
In "The Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin tells the story of a woman, Mrs. Mallard whose husband is thought to be dead. Throughout the story Chopin describes the emotions Mrs. Mallard felt about the news of her husband's death. However, the strong emotions she felt were not despair or sadness, they were something else. In a way she was relieved more than she was upset, and almost rejoiced in the thought of her husband no longer living. In using different literary elements throughout the story, Chopin conveys this to us on more than one occasion.
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 herself during the years to come. Her epiphany occurs exactly when she frees herself to new ideas and the prospect of individuality rather than dependency. This gives her a new sense of assertiveness and ability to live her life according to her own will. This epiphany is established by Chopin’s use of foreshadowing, Mrs. Mallard’s acquisition of new information, and the changes that this information sparks.
In her story “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin (1894) uses imagery and descriptive detail to contrast the rich possibilities for which Mrs. Mallard yearns, given the drab reality of her everyday life. Chopin utilizes explicit words to provide the reader a background on Mrs. Mallard’s position. Chopin uses “She wept at once,” to describe Mrs. Mallard’s emotional reaction once she was told her husband had been “Killed.” Mrs. Mallard cared for and loved her husband; being married was the only way of life that she knew.
Ewell, Barbara C. "Kate Chopin." Short Story Criticism. Ed. Thomas Votteler. Vol. 8. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1991. 20 vols.
In conclusion, “The story of an hour” is a clear depiction that women status in the society determines the choices they make about their lives. In this work, Chopin depicts a woman as a lesser being without identity or voices of their own. They are expected to remain in oppressive marriages and submit to their husbands without question.
Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour is a brilliant short story of irony and emotion. The story demonstrates conflicts that take us through the character’s emotions as she finds out about the death of her husband. Without the well written series of conflicts and events this story, the reader would not understand the depth of Mrs. Mallard’s inner conflict and the resolution at the end of the story. The conflict allows us to follow the emotions and unfold the irony of the situation in “The Story of an Hour.”
Bayley, John. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 76. N.p.: Gale, 1992. 322-31. Web. 17 Dec. 2013.