“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is a short story of an hour in Mrs. Mallards life when she learns of her husband’s death. A friend of Mr. Mallard’s, having learned the information, brought the news of his death. Mrs. Mallard, who suffers from a heart condition, was told very gently by her sister Josephine that her husband had been killed. She wept at once in her sister’s arms. After crying she goes to her room to be alone; she understands the right way one is to behave. I believe Mrs. Mallard to be truly grieved over her husband’s death; at the same time, she begins to see life in a brand-new light. Mrs. Mallard’s husband seemed very much in control of the marriage as well as his wife. In those days women were thought of as weak and incapable of taking care of themselves. In contrast, Mrs. Mallard was an intelligent, independent woman who was very oppressed in her circumstances. After Mrs. Mallard realizes her husband has not died, all her hope of her new independent life fades and that devastation kills her. I believe Mrs. Mallard to be a sympathetic character because she clearly grieved while thinking her husband had passed. I feel very saddened also …show more content…
Mallard’s friend, Richard, learned of his death in a railroad accident while at the newspaper office. Mr. Mallard’s name was leading the list of “killed” (p.234). He knows that Mr. Mallard’s wife is afflicted with a heart trouble, so he wants to break the news as gently as possible. She is told by her sister Josephine of his death. After being told of Brently’s death she cries at once, with wild abandon in her sister’s arms. Her grief is very sincere. Later, when she is alone in her room her heart beats strongly and her body warms. Mrs. Mallard “does not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance” (p.234). The reality of having a life of her own brought her hope. With this hope comes a deep overwhelming fear because freedom now belongs to
Mrs. Mallard’s husband is thought to be dead, and since she has that thought in her mind she goes through many feelings
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...
Back then, women had a no say in things and were not allowed to work. The men made all of the money, so marrying the only option for women. Divorce was not an option because with no money and no job, running away would prove to be pointless. Therefore, when her husband dies, she can finally break away from the role she is forced to play which is that of the perfect wife, and can stop holding herself back. In fact, after a brief moment of sorrow she is overjoyed with the sense of freedom and just as she is going to open the door and leave forever, Mr. Mallard opens the door very much alive.
The story begins on a very sad note especially in the eyes of a reader. Mrs. Mallard is said to have a “heart
Some people may agree with the doctor’s diagnosis, but I think he was wrong. I believe that Mrs. Mallard’s death was not because she was happy to see her husband, but because she was sad about the loss of her newly-found freedom. I also think Mrs. Mallard realized that love is not a substitute for the freedom to live your own life. Throughout this short story there are examples showing how Mrs. Mallard’s actions and ideas are focused on her freedom. There are also thoughts and ideas that show Mrs. Mallard realizing that love is by no means a substitute for independence.
Mrs. Mallard is the character we know the most about by far. Of course, that's not saying much. She's the protagonist, the center of attention, and the person around whom all the other characters revolve. At the beginning of the story, when Mr. Mallard dies, the other characters (Richards and Josephine) put aside their personal grief to console Mrs. Mallard. Their first priority is taking care of her – making sure she gets through the hard news without dying herself.
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...
Chopin describes her as a fragile woman. Because she was “afflicted with a heart trouble,” when she receives notification of her husband’s passing, “great care was taken” to break the news “as gently as possible” (1). Josephine, her sister, and Richards, her husband’s friend, expect her to be devastated over this news, and they fear that the depression could kill her because of her weak heart. Richards was “in the newspaper office when the intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of killed” (1). He therefore is one of the first people to know about his death. Knowing about Mrs. Mallard’s heart, he realizes that they need to take caution in letting Mrs. Mallard know about it. Josephine told her because Richards feared “any less careful, less tender” person relaying the message to Louise Mallard (1). Because of her heart trouble, they think that if the message of her husband’s death is delivered to her the wrong way, her heart would not be able to withstand it. They also think that if someone practices caution in giving her the message, that, ...
After she read the story, she said that the reader can definitely have some sympathy for Mrs. Mallard. She claimed that Mrs. Mallard was probably very tired of having to take care of her husband all the time and her not being able to do anything else. My mother said that now that her husband was dead, she will be able to continue on with her life freely without having to worry about anything else. She said that it is often the case back home in India, where she is from. In India, women often do not hold jobs and are instead housewives tending to their husbands. However, she did point out that Mrs. Mallard would have likely gotten remarried as she cannot earn money because of her status as a
Marriage for Mrs. Mallard meant death must take place to her individuality. She was obligated to become the product of her husband's desires. Living in a state of constantly feeling a “powerful will bending her,” Mrs. Mallard was unable to act as her true self during her marriage (66). As long as she was legally bound to a man, her dreams and ambitions must stay sealed by suppression. “She had thought with a shudder that life might be long,” tells readers that she could not embrace this reality (66).
Mallard gets the news she goes into her room to have some alone time. She’s in there for awhile so her sister goes and check on her but Mrs. Mallard locked the door, her sister was worried about her and thought she was making herself ill but Mrs. Mallard replies to her sister and says “Go away. I am not making myself ill.” (16) At this moment Mrs. Mallard was actually happy about her husband’s death the evidence that supports it is after she tells her sister she’s not making herself ill, “
This reflection period allowed Mrs. Mallard free herself from the life she had with her husband. Once she discovered that her husband was still alive, she passed away as the event was overwhelming for her. Mrs. Mallard feared her husband in a way that affected her perception in life—that men are the dominating figure. Through the feminist criticism
Mrs.Mallard chose to accept the truth, weep and become haunted by the news and yet later the story takes an unexpected turn. She later becomes fine with the outcome for it lead her to freedom. The views of death and its significance with both writers is written with a strong aura of suffering and
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.
Mallard on behalf of those married women in low social status and lived in the shadow of men but still aspire to freedom. At the beginning of the story, Mrs. Mallard was described as a weaker person with heart problems, “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms.”, which shows her grief and shock while female is emotional and women might be the weak group in the society, but when she slowly calmed down and awakened her feminist consciousness to pursue freedom, a sense of excitement controlled her thoughts; then, she began to appear as a stronger woman. Her volatility of emotion contributed to the development of the whole story, where these emotions changed among suddenly sad weeping, calming down, feared, excited, joyful, disappointed. The author set a comparison with the different reactions of Mrs. Mallard and her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richards when they heard Mr. Mallard’s death. Josephine and Richards from the beginning of the story treated her carefully to avoid her heart attack hearing this sad new.