Louise Mallard depended her life so much to her husband, Brently Mallard that the news of his sudden death caused her to feel weak physically and spiritually as said in the story. We were told by the author that she was burdened with a ‘heart trouble’ and the news of her husband’s death should be broken to her ‘as gently as possible’, thus this informs us that she is, by nature, weak and fragile. Her sister Johanna and her husband’s friend Richard furthermore convinces us that she is really frail since they are very careful in choosing their words as they tell her.
It is normal for us to feel grief when we lose a loved one but what Mrs. Mallard felt was beyond grief. It is exhaustion; exhaustion from being too vulnerable and powerless, exhaustion from being inferior and exhaustion from being lost. What she sees outside the window is a representation of what she wants to be: free and have the chance to start a new life. She was the child ‘who has cried itself to sleep and continues to sob in her dreams’. She kept her feelings inside her for a very long time and now it is beginning to escape.
Her reaction as freedom escapes her body gives us an idea how her marriage looks like. Originally, she did not recognize
…show more content…
Mrs. Mallard’s name was only revealed to us when she accepts her freedom hence; we can say that her identity during her marriage is ‘the wife of Mr. Mallard’ and that she belongs to him. The revelation of her name suggests that she is now free from being Mr Mallard’s wife. Her sister’s concern for her being sick tells us that she still believes that Louise is weak and Louise’s rejection to her implies that she is no longer that person. It suggests that she is now capable of standing up for herself. As she opens her door to her sister, this suggests that she is ready to accept and welcome a new life and to be free from her lifelong
Mrs. Mallard’s husband is thought to be dead, and since she has that thought in her mind she goes through many feelings
The Reconstruction was undoubtedly a failure . The political and social aim of Reconstruction was to form national unity as well as create civil rights and equality for African Americans. Even though Reconstruction laid the foundation for equal rights in the United States, it did not achieve its primary goals. In the time of Reconstruction, many African Americans still felt the effects of oppression and many were still trapped in an undesirable social and economic class. The Reconstruction was an overall fail despite the fact that it was the shaky groundwork for a fight for equality in the years to come.
is also oppressed by the circumstances within her marriage. Mrs. Mallard however suppressed her feelings and of unhappiness and in which the story implies puts stress on her heart. The announcement of her husband death brings on conflicting feelings of grief and joy. Mrs. Mallard paradoxical statement about the death of her husband changes her perception about life. “She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
Mrs. Louise Mallard has a "weak" heart. In Louise 's case, a reader also can see the disenfranchised woman who was not able to guide her own life due to the social constraints of a male-dominated society. Louise 's reaction to her husband 's death was shocking even to herself. As she is told the news, Louise goes to her room to be alone. The fact that "she would have no one follow her" could possible symbolize the beginning of her acceptance and understanding that "she would live for herself." She wanted to be alone in order to allow her emotions to react freely to the news of her husband 's death. This clearly shows that the protagonist can’t allow herself to show her emotions in public. She’s scared of being
In the short story, “The Story of an Hour,” author Kate Chopin presents the character of Mrs. Louis Mallard. She is an unhappy woman trapped in her discontented marriage. Unable to assert herself or extricate herself from the relationship, she endures it. The news of the presumed death of her husband comes as a great relief to her, and for a brief moment she experiences the joys of a liberated life from the repressed relationship with her husband. The relief, however, is short lived. The shock of seeing him alive is too much for her bear and she dies. The meaning of life and death take on opposite meaning for Mrs. Mallard in her marriage because she lacked the courage to stand up for herself.
Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of an Hour”, is about a woman, named Louise Mallard, in the late 1800s who is told that her husband, Brently, has died in a railroad accident. Initially, Louise is surprised, distressed, and drowned in sorrow. After mourning the loss, the woman realizes that she is finally free and independent, and that the only person she has to live for is herself. She becomes overwhelmed with joy about her new discovery of freedom, and dreams of all of the wonderful events in life that lie ahead of her. Louise’s sister finally convinces her to leave her room and come back into reality. While Louise is walking down her steps, her husband surprisingly enters through the door because he was actually not killed in the accident. At the same moment, Louise collapses and dies, supposedly from “heart disease-of joy that kills” (Chopin 706).
The main character in this story is Louise Mallard, a delicate woman whose life is changed with the announcement of her husbands’ death, delivered by her sister and a family friend.
The deep and ironic meaning that are portrayed within this writing can be seen as many different things. Berkove believes the deep and ironic meaning to the story is that “Louise Mallard is an immature egotist and a victim of her own self-assertion.” Although this is what Berkove thinks it is unclear to anyone besides the author what the true meaning behind the story is. It is not until recently that the interpretation of the story has a feminist movement background to it as light is shed on the way marriages were constructed and managed during the Victorian
First, Louise Mallard suffers a heart trouble. When Louise believes that her husband died, her heart trouble is representative of her mixed feeling about her marriage and the lack of freedom that causes her. The heart beats strongly and she embraces the idea of finally being free from her marriage. When Mr. Mallard died, Mrs. Mallard 's statement was "free! body and soul free!" and quiet whispers of "free, free, free" (533). This lets the readers know that she was not happy in her marriage with Mr. Mallard. She felt held back from her own independence as a woman and these statements symbolize her joy for freedom. She
Written in 1894, “The Story of an Hour” is a story of a woman who, through the erroneously reported death of her husband, experienced true freedom. Both tragic and ironic, the story deals with the boundaries imposed on women by society in the nineteenth century. The author Kate Chopin, like the character in her story, had first-hand experience with the male-dominated society of that time and had experienced the death of her husband at a young age (Internet). The similarity between Kate Chopin and her heroine can only leave us to wonder how much of this story is fiction and how much is personal experience.
Louise Mallard finds personal strength in her husband's death, ready to face the world as a whole person "She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday (prior to her husband's death) she had thought with a shudder that life might be long." The strength conveyed in the image of Louise carrying "herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory" is unmistakable. However, the irony that her husband lives, and therefore, she cannot, conveys the limited options socially acceptable for women. Once Louise Mallard recognizes her desire to "live for herself," and the impossibility of doing so within the bounds of her marriage, her heart will not allow her to turn back.
Mallard’s emotions over the presumed death of her husband. The author used both dramatic and situational irony to mislead the reader and surprise them with a plot twist ending. By utilizing both external and internal conflict the author expresses the internal debate of Mrs. Mallard’s true feelings and those of the people around her. The author used symbolism to display Mrs. Mallard’s desire for freedom from her marriage. In the end it was not joy that killed Mrs. Mallard but the realization that she lost her
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...
Mrs. Mallard who says her husband was loving and nice, still feels a sense of joy and freedom when she thinks he has died. Louise feeling this way suggests that all marriages are oppressive in some way and take away independence from those in them. Louise is introduced as “Mrs. Mallard” at the beginning of the story and referred to as “she” up until she becomes “free” after her husbands death. This lasts until the reader figures out Brently is not dead and her status as a wife is reestablished. The very last sentence in the book, “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease-of joy that kills” (Chopin 301) .The fact that the doctors, who happen to be men, had the last say in Mrs. Mallard’s life is another example of men dictating the way she lives. Chopin makes the setting confined to one hospital room to illustrate the confinements Mrs. Mallard is living in due to her marriage. She finally escapes from that room at the very end of the story but only for seconds before discovering her husband is still alive and it destroys everything she was looking forward
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.