For women, the 19th century was a time of inequality, oppression, and inferiority to their male counterparts. A woman's social standing depended solely on her marital status. For these reasons many women were forced to lead a life of solitude and emotional inadequacy, often causing depression. In Kate Chopin's short story "The Story of an Hour," setting plays a significant role in illustrating the bittersweet triumph of Mrs. Mallard's escape from oppression at the ironic cost of her life.
Chopin sets the story in the springtime to represent a time of new life and rebirth, which mirrors Louise's discovery of her freedom. Louise immediately takes herself to a room where, "facing the window [sat] a comfortable, roomy armchair" (Chopin 470). The news of her husband's death leaves her feeling lost and confused, seeking answers about her future. In her husband's lifetime, she was "pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach to her soul," but once left alone to gaze out of the open window and to observe the "patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds," she recognizes freedom for the first time (Chopin 470). Initially, she fails to fully comprehend the mysterious yet promising beginning to her new life, but soon welcomes it as, "she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window" (Chopin 471). Getting a glimpse of her life with an absolute and fresh freedom gives her the strength to abandon a life of solitude and to "spread her arms out [. . .] in welcome" (Chopin 471). Just as springtime is a fresh beginning to a new year, Louise's discovery of sovereignty is a hopeful promise to a new life.
Aside from the springtime, Chopin creates an atmosphere that parallels ...
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...e could explore her own intuitions and be her own self, and like most women, it was a dream she had longed for since birth.
Unfortunately, her hope for long years and many beautiful spring days was abruptly ended in an ironic twist. Unbeknownst to herself and her company, Mr. Mallard had survived, and within an hour the promises of a bright future for Mrs. Mallard had both began and came to an end. Her grievous death was misconstrued as joy to the others: "they said she had died of heart disease-of joy that kills" (Chopin 471). This statement embodies the distorted misconception that a woman lives only for her man. The audience, in fact, sees just the opposite. To Louise her life was elongated at the news of her husband's death, not cut short. Throughout the story, one hopes Louise will gain her freedom. Ironically, she is granted freedom, but only in death.
Mallard felt restricted in her marriage and displays the need for independence. Symbolism is used to exemplify the transformation from Mrs. Mallard’s unconscious, numb existence to Louise’s new founded freedom. Chopin uses the seasons to symbolize the new life taking place within Louise. This new world appears before her through the world displayed through her bedroom window. The reader views her as motionless with her dull stare transformed into a gaze focus off yonder, symbolizing her future. The unknown feeling of freedom grew closer to Louise. Mrs. Mallard gains this “possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being.” This alludes to Mrs. Mallard’s desire for independence.
Mrs. Mallard is the example of a typical housewife of the mid 1800’s. At the time, most women were not allowed to go to school and were usually anticipated to marry and do housework. During that time, the only way women could get out of a marriage was if they were to die or their husbands was to die. In that time period, the husband had control of all of the money, so it would not be wise if the wife were to leave the financial freedom that was provided by the husband. This is most likely why Mrs. Mallard never leaves her husband’s death, she is sad at first but then experiences an overwhelming sense of joy. This shows that she is not in a fulfilling marriage as his death means she will finally have own individual freedom, as well as financial freedom being the grieving widow who will inherit her husband’s wealth. In the words of Lawrence I. Berkove he states, “On the other hand, Chopin did not regard marriage as a state of pure and unbroken bliss, but on the other, she could not intelligently believe that it was desirable, healthy, or even possible for anyone to live as Louise, in the grip of her feverish delusion, wishes: to be absolutely free and to live totally and solely for oneself.” (3) Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to her husband’s death is Chopin’s way of expressin...
She whispers, “Free! Body and soul free!” (Chopin). Though her situation is sad, she does not have a remorseful response. She locks herself in her room and reflects upon her new reality. She instead comes to find a form of liberation for herself from her husband’s death. As she looks out the window, Chopin writes, “…she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window,” (Chopin). Chopin is stating Louie’s newly found greatness for her life. She is now able to live for herself and not behind her husband as society has told her. She can be different and gain more from her life now because she does not have to follow or live for a man, as many woman did in society. She feels exonerated from her bondage, which is marriage, and she now feels she can have a life for herself. In the end, her husband is actually found to be alive as he walks into the room. Chopin writes, “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills,” (Chopin). From seeing her husband, Louise dies. It was joy that had killed her. Readers can easily believe that she died because of the shock that her husband was still alive, but in reality she died from the loss of her new found greatness. The joy that killed her was her own
The life that Louise Mallard leads is one of the afore mentioned conditions. The toll it takes on her is shown in her "fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression." (11). It is after the friend of the family broke "to her as gently as possible the news of her husbands death" (10) and she has time to contemplate that she realizes she is no longer under domination. This newfound life for Louise is in time "with the new spring life" (11). As spring is born, a new opportunity has come available for Mrs. Mallard; A chance to renew herself and pursue her freedom
As Louise contemplates the fact of Brently Mallard's death, however, her grief gives way to a far more powerful feeling—a feeling of joy in her own freedom. Louise realizes that she will feel sad when she sees Brently's "kind, tender hands folded in death," but she also realizes that for the first time in years she actually wants to live. While Louise is intoxicated with this newfound joy, Josephine, who fears that Louise might harm herself in her anguish over Brently's death, implores her to leave the locked room and come downstairs. As the two women descend the staircase, Brently Mallard walks in the front door. Chopin comments, "he had been far from the scene of accident, and did not even know there had been one." Upon seeing her husband, Louise suffers a heart attack and dies. This simple surface action belies the complexities of the prose style.
In the story it says, “It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of ‘killed.’.” (Chopin, 1). This shows that she received a news about her husband being killed and later one she becomes so happy due to this news. At the end of the story she gets heart attack because she sees her husband at the door. At the end of story it says, “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.” (Chopin, 2). This is saying that she has died because she was so happy when she heard that her husband is dead but soon as she heard her husband enter the door she died of it. This shows how Louise character changed from the beginning of the story to the end of the story from the reaction she had from seeing her husband and hearing news about
Those expectations are shown through the emotions of the main character, Louise, and her rollercoaster of thoughts concerning her husband’s death in the story. Originally, she is upset that he has passed, but as she looks outside and sees how bright and new the spring is she stumbles upon the realization that his death is positive. She is finally free of society’s harsh standards concerning women and them having to be married because widows were not forced to remarry. In the end, Louise dies from a heart condition in a medical and metaphorical sense. She did indeed have a heart condition that was noted in the beginning of the story, but she was also dead with grief that her husband was alive and that her moment of freedom had been snatched from her clutches once
Analysis of “The Story of an Hour”. 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 with 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.”
As Mrs. Mallard lets her realization take root she begins to chant, “free, free, free” (Chopin, 75). This shows that she accepts her new fate and knows that she will be okay without her husband. Louise becomes aware that she has been dictated by social expectation and requirement, but now can live for herself once again with no one to answer to. Louise admits, “she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death” (Chopin, 75), but sees her future beyond that now. Social expectations no longer obligate her to be the woman she was. Louise is now able to do what she feels is most beneficial for her as an individual, and not what would be expected in her monogamous
At first, Louise is fearful of how her life would be without her husband, who kept her oppressed for all that while. Her grief is reasonable and fitting, but it doesn't last a while. Once her anguish died down, she was able to see that there was something much better in her future and that the death of her husband meant that she finally had her independence. At first, she tries to muffle the joy she feels over this realization; this shows that she was still afraid of being autonomous. Eventually, as the story continues, she embraces the change. This newfound sense of autonomy enlivens and fills her with joy. She figures out that what she has now is more important than what she had before. Joy overtakes her grief (Chopin 56). Though the story does not give any concrete examples of the said suppression, Louise's state of mental liberation after her husband's death is enough of a
The aspirations and expectations of freedom can lead to both overwhelming revelations and melancholy destruction. In Kate Chopin’s “ The Story of an Hour” Louise Mallard is stricken with the news of her husband’s “death” and soon lead to new found glory of her freedom and then complete catastrophe in the death of herself. Chopin’s use of irony and the fluctuation in tone present the idea that freedom can be given or taken away without question and can kill without warning. After learning of her husband’s death in a railroad disaster, Mrs. Mallard sinks into a deep state of grief, as one would be expected to do upon receiving such news.
...egaining her husband and all of the loss of freedom her marriage entails. The line establishes that Louise's heart condition is more of a metaphor for her emotional state than a medical reality.” (Koloski) It is ironic that she accepts the death of her husband and is joyous and free, and then he ends up being alive after she walks out of the room with a sense of power. The ending of The Story of an hour by Kate Chopin implies that maybe the only true resolution of conflict is in death.
In the beginning of the story, Chopin refers to Louise as Mrs. Mallard, giving her the appearance of a basic housewife who hides behind her husband; waiting on him hand and foot. When in reality she is much more than that, but is simply being held back by her husband’s plans for her, and society’s view on how women should act and how they should
of a sunny day than a gloomy sky. At this point it is almost confusing
Coming to the end of this class I have learned a lot about what it takes to make a piece of literature leave you feeling a certain way. A lot goes into setting up a atmosphere in a story because you are not really seeing it in front of your face so you must imagine it. The author wants you to imagine a certain scene and feel a certain way through their words and descriptions. An important component to making a reader understand the atmosphere and visualize the scene is by the setting. Setting is where a specific event is taking place. Without setting it would be hard for a reader to not only visualize but to even understand the theme, tone and the atmosphere. Throughout this semester we learned this from genres such as short story, poems and