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Analysis of mrs mallard in an hour by kate chopin
Analysis of mrs mallard in an hour by kate chopin
What kind of protagonist is mrs. mallard
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Recommended: Analysis of mrs mallard in an hour by kate chopin
The short story novelist, Kate Chopin, enlightens her readers about the reality of many married women during the 1800s. Chopin 's story revolves around Mrs.Mallard who drastically loses her husband in an accident. Throughout the story, Chopin expresses the various emotional changes that her character Mrs.Mallard undergoes. Initially a humble housewife, Mrs. Mallard evolves into a confident women when exposed to freedom. Kate Chopin launches her short story by introducing the main character, Mrs. Mallard. Mrs. Mallard is considered the protagonist, the person who the story is centered around. She is described physically as "young with a fair, calm face,.." and someone who possesses "two white slender hands" (Chopin 15), which indicates that she is a youthful, pretty women who does not engage in manual labor. In the first sentence, her fragility is revealed, "Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was affiliated with a heart trouble,". Instantly, a critical analysis should commence. Why would a young female during 1849 suffer from heart trouble? According to WebMD.com, premature heart disease is caused by stress and is prevalent in individuals who fail to have proper stress …show more content…
"She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with paralyzed inability to accept its significance" (Chopin 15). In this situation, Mrs.Mallard 's response is different. She cries instantly yet, her tears were overpowered by her thoughts. She begins to imagine a life without him, a life of liberation. At first, she was scared and her feelings made her perplex. Nonetheless, as she allows her feelings to progress the situation enlightens and she becomes overjoyed. She thinks of a life after the casket. Yes, she knows her feelings of grief will return at the funeral but she sees that as human nature. In her perspective, his passing is the door to her independence, "Free! Body and soul free" (Chopin
Like in many tragically true stories, it would seem Mrs. Mallard 's freedom came too late. Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour” begins by introducing Mrs. Mallard as a person afflicted with heart trouble. The story builds on this by having Mrs. Mallard’s sister Josephine and her husband Richard explain the situation in a very sensitive manner. Their efforts would prove to be in vain however as Mrs. Mallard then proceeds to emotionally break down. The news shocks Mrs. Mallard to her very core and has her at odds with how she should feel now that all was said and done. After coming to terms with her situation, fate delivers its final blow in a cruel and deceitful ploy towards Mrs. Mallards. And with that, Mrs. Mallard 's dies. In her hour of change Mrs. Mallard 's was delicate, thoughtful and excitable.
Kate Chopin is a phenomenal writer, with two published novels and over one hundred short stories, not only does her writing style keep the reader intrigued, but also the setting, dialect, and history behind her work tell a story all its own. Chopin uses contrast in her writing "The Story of an Hour" through the hints about the quality of Mr. And Mrs. Mallard 's marriage, Mrs. Mallards emotions toward her husband 's death, and Mrs. Mallards death to emphasize her theme of gender roles in a time when women had no rights.
The first sentence of the story clearly states: “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband 's death.” (REFERENCE) Consequently, she has a weak heart and the unexpected news could cause a dangerously deadly reaction. Also, while referring to the statement: “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.”(REFERENCE), gender relation is present. To elaborate, when Chopin wrote the story in 1894, women were submissive to men. Consequently, a woman could not be independant of her husband, thus being confined to her relationship, which foreshadows Mrs. Mallard’s death because her husband, who is considered more important and the head of the family, is already dead. Given her reality, Mrs. Mallard’s faith is
Kate Chopin’s story, "The Story of an Hour," may seem to be about Mrs. Mallard’s unexpected and ironic reactions to the news of her husband’s untimely death due to a railroad disaster. At least that’s what I thought when I read the story. It seemed to me that she led a normal life with a normal marriage. She had a stable home life with a kind, loving husband who cared for her. She seemed to love him, sometimes. She had some kind of "heart trouble" (Chopin 25) that didn’t really affect her physically, until the very end. I thought Mrs. Mallard would have been saddened and filled with grief for an adequate period of time after her spouse died, but her grief passed quickly, and she embraced a new life that she seemed to be content with. Therefore I believe there is good evidence that Mrs. Mallard was an ungrateful woman who did not appreciate her husband or his love for her. That evidence is found in her selfish behavior after the death of her husband, Brently Mallard.
...Mallard’s death up to the reader’s own interpretation, but it seems that she is trying to secretly prove that women do not have to be dependent upon men. Chopin demonstrates throughout the literary work that women can possess joy without having a man by their side, which contradicts the beliefs of the 1800’s society. Chopin’s use of an ambiguous death and irony successfully create an entertaining story that courageously takes a stand for women’s freedom.
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.
Chopin reflects her rejection of the “postures of femininity” through her character’s descriptions. She describes her as “young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression.” Describing her as young and calm are what men looked for in a wife in the 19th century. They wanted a submissive woman to tend to their needs as Chopin’s description suggests. Furthermore, Chopin says of her character Mrs. Mallard, “she would live for herself.” Her character believes she will now be free of her marriage, and won’t be “repressed” as aforementioned any longer by her husband. Wives had a natural servitude towards their husbands as husbands worked and went about their lives. All in all, Chopin displays her character as having a joyous moment after the death of her husband because she is let go of being forced into her “femininity.”
A Woman Far Ahead of Her Time, by Ann Bail Howard, discusses the nature of the female characters in Kate Chopin’s novel’s and short stories. Howard suggests that the women in Chopin’s stories are longing for independence and feel torn between the feminine duties of a married woman and the freedom associated with self-reliance. Howard’s view is correct to a point, but Chopin’s female characters can be viewed as more radically feminist than Howard realizes. Rather than simply being torn between independent and dependant versions of her personality, “The Story of an Hour’s” Mrs. Mallard actually rejoices in her newfound freedom, and, in the culmination of the story, the position of the woman has actually been elevated above that of the man, suggesting a much more radically feminist reading than Howard cares to persue.
... This woman suffers a tremendous amount from the commitment of her marriage, and the death of her husband does not affect her for long. A marriage such as this seems so unbelievable, yet a reader can see the realistic elements incorporated into the story. This begs the question of how undesirable marriage was during Chopin’s life. The unhappiness felt by Mrs. Mallard seems to be very extreme, but Chopin creates a beautiful story that reflects upon the idea of marriage as an undesired relationship and bond to some women in the nineteenth century.
Chopin first shows the struggle by telling how Mrs. Mallard’s sister, Josephine, and friend, Richards, expect Mrs. Mallard to react to her husband’s death. Chopin starts the story by saying, “[k]nowing the Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with heart trouble, great care was taken to break her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death” (30). The heart condition introduced in the first line of the story is actually the weakness
Upon coming to the realization that her husband did not die in a tragic railroad incident as she was told by her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richards, in the most delicate manner due to her heart troubles, Mrs. Mallard dies suffering from a heart attack. The doctors claim that the cause of her heart attack was from a “joy that kills”(Chopin, Page 3). Throughout this short story, the author Kate Chopin, focuses on visualizing the emotions and the role that the women of the 19th century had as wives. And so, Kate Chopin shows the role of women and what is expected of them by telling a story of a woman who experiences an emotional transformation as soon as she finds out she is a widow. The emotional transformation that Mrs. Mallard
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
Mallard states that she is going to live her new life independently now that Mr. Mallard is gone; she accepts her newfound freedom and believes that she is now an independent woman. Mrs. Mallard was oppressed by Mr. Mallard, and Chopin hints at this oppression: “Chopin seems to be making a comment on nineteenth-century marriages, which granted one person - the man - right to own and dominate another - the woman,” (“The Story of an Hour” 266). The men and women should be treated equally in marriage and should be free, which relates to Mrs. Mallard feeling oppressed by Mr. Mallard. She realizes that she was below her husband her whole married life: “What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!” (Chopin 645). Her inferiority to her husband controlled her; his death allows her to start over as an independent being. Mrs. Mallard is known to have heart trouble, but readers do not understand what that trouble is until they soon find out: “Later, when we see Mrs. Mallard ‘warmed and relaxed,’ we realize that the problem with her heart is that her marriage has not allowed her to ‘live for herself,’” (Hicks 269). The readers find out that Mrs. Mallard’s mystery heart trouble dealt with her being confined by Mr. Mallard in marriage, which she soon turns away from. Mrs. Mallard’s internal struggle is caused by rushing into marriage; she did not develop herself before developing a relationship with someone else, such as Mr. Mallard: “Love is not a substitute for selfhood; indeed selfhood is love’s pre-condition,” (Ewell 273). Mrs. Mallard may have felt constrained by Mr. Mallard in her marriage because she did not know herself before. If she had known herself before the marriage, she would have known her own constraints and opinions, instead of feeling oppressed by Mr. Mallard. Mrs. Mallard accepts her freedom and independence. She decides to live
Mallard. Her self-assertion surpassed the years they were married and the love she had for him. She is beginning to realize she can now live for and focus on herself. The text insists “There would be no one to live for during those 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.” (Chopin 477.) Finally she can live freely and no longer worry about being confined in her marriage and inside her own home. She has come to realization that she is now independent and can think freely and achieves happiness and freedom. She is no longer held down or back by her marriage. She will no longer be someone’s possession she will be free and respected. Her husband Brently returns and he is alive the happiness and freedom she once possessed briefly with the mere image of her deceased husband were quickly torn away. “When the doctors came they said she died of heart disease of joy that kills” (Chopin 477). She was free but still confined without the knowledge of her husband who wasn’t dead. Chopin illustrates at the end that she was free because joy killed her. She was joyous because she was finally set free but she is now once again confined by the grief knowing her husband was not killed
“There is no perfect relationship. The idea that there is gets us into so much trouble.”-Maggie Reyes. Kate Chopin reacts to this certain idea that relationships in a marriage during the late 1800’s were a prison for women. Through the main protagonist of her story, Mrs. Mallard, the audience clearly exemplifies with what feelings she had during the process of her husbands assumed death. Chopin demonstrates in “The Story of an Hour” the oppression that women faced in marriage through the understandings of: forbidden joy of independence, the inherent burdens of marriage between men and women and how these two points help the audience to further understand the norms of this time.