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Analysis of story of an hour by Kate Chopin
Analysis of story of an hour by Kate Chopin
Analysis of story of an hour by Kate Chopin
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The short story, "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopkins begins by telling the reader about Mrs. Mallards heart condition and that she needed to be told very lightly that her husband passed. Throughout the short story we are able to see a lot of irony taking place. Mrs. Mallard dies from heart failure due to her condition when her supposed to be dead husband walks through the front door. "the joy that kills" (paragraph 21) They believe she died from joy, when in fact she died from disappointment. When Mrs. Mallard first receives the news that her husband has past away in a railroad accident she reacts in a way most people don't when they hear a loved one has past. Normally, we see women not able to accept it but that wasn't the case for Mrs. Mullard. She fell into her sisters arms and just cried while feeling this sense of abandonment. She then went and locked herself away in a room with only a window and a rocking chair. In the air was the smell of rain which could symbolize the rebirth of Mrs. Mallard’s freedom from her husband. She is now realizing that she is able to live her life for herself without having to please anyone else and sees the chance to become her own person. …show more content…
By Mrs.
Mallard isolating herself in the room with the open window she was able to see the tree tops, clouds, and blue skies. She began to faintly hear the sound of someone singing and birds chirping in the distance. All of her senses are suggesting the upcoming of spring and this feeling of freedom she didn't have when her husband was still alive. This open window in the room is allowing her to look out into the distance and almost envision a future of living only for herself. Once Mrs. Mallard feels her body come back to life she began repeating "free, free, free!" (paragraph 11) Ultimately, Mrs. Mallard did not feel this freedom for very long when her husband walked through the front door. She was so devastated at the loss of her new life that her heart
failed. When Mrs. Mallard leaves the room she feels free and carries herself as a goddess of victory as she went downstairs. This is when her husband came home alive which ended up killing her. Mrs. Mallard only had a short amount of time to realize that she can live in this world anyway she chooses to. But as soon as she saw him she knew she would go back and spend the rest of her life as just his wife. She dies because in that moment she realizes that she lost everything she had gained. Mrs. Mallard was first very upset at the thought of her husband being dead but by look at the open window she gained a greater awareness of herself through nature. Almost as if her husband made her feel as if it were a gloomy winter and she's just now seeing the blossoming of spring through the trees, birds, and clouds. Although it was only a short hour that she had her freedom at least she was able to feel like her own person instead of just a wife before passing.
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 freedom did not last but a few moments. Her reaction to the news of the death of her husband was not the way most people would have reacted. We do not know much about Mr. And Mrs. Mallards relationship. We gather from the text that her freedom must have been limited in some way for her to be feeling this way. Years ago women were expected to act a certain way and not to deviate from that. Mrs. Mallard could have been very young when she and Brently were married. She may not have had the opportunity to see the world through a liberated woman?s eyes and she thought now was her chance.
In the short story, “The Story of An Hour”, written by Kate Choppin, a woman with a heart trouble is told her husband had passed away in a railroad disaster. Mrs. Mallard was depressed, then she came to a realization that she was free. Back in the day this story was written, women did not have many rights. They were overruled by their husband. As she became more aware of how many doors her husband death would open, she had passed away. The doctors had said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills. The irony in the situation was that as she was dying, her husband walked through the door, alive.
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...
She has no uniqueness of her own; she is just a woman that belongs to her husband Mr. Mallard. After she realizes how free she is, readers begin to see her as an actual person. The spring season reflects the rebirth of Mrs. Mallard’s character. The storm clouds clearing to show blue skies is symbolic of the storm of her marriage passing. Even though Mrs. Mallard knows that she should not be happy, she cannot stop her feelings of joy: “She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her” (151).
The story is very short, but every word has import in the story and each line has great depth of meaning. It is possible to infer a great deal about the woman's life, even though we are given very little on the surface. A telegraph and a railroad are mentioned in the first paragraph, so there is some idea of the time the story takes place. We are also given her married name and the full name of her husband. The fact that she is referred to only as "Mrs. Mallard", while her husband's full name is given, coupled with what we learn on the second page, gives some indication of the repression she's had to suffer through and the indignity society placed on woman in those times. We also learn in the first paragraph that she lives in a man's world, for, though it is her sister that tells her the news, it is her husband's friend who rushes over with the story. Even after his death, she is confined to the structures she adopted with married life, including the close friend's of her husband.
Story of an Hour a great example of irony showcased in a story. The final line of the story says that Mrs. Mallard “died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.” The irony is in which it is actually sadness and not joy that killed her. She died from the realization that the joy she saw from her window is now gone. The thought of being free and independent is what actually killed her. If she wasn’t happy with the death of her husband, then finding out he was alive wo...
Another example of how Mrs. Mallard was more uplifted than brought down by the news of her husband?s death is the description of the window. As Mrs. Mallard looks out Chopin explains ?she could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all a quiver with new life?. This is telling the reader about the new life that Mrs. Mallard can see in the distance that symbolizes the new life she saw that lay ahead of her now that she was free of her husband. This thought being supported by Hicks in saying "The revalation of freedom occurs in the bedroom"
Her sister, Josephine, broke the news to her “in broken sentences, veiled hints that revealed in half concealing”. After hearing of her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard locks herself in her room to mourn. She sits in a chair facing an open window and begins to sob. As she sat gazing at an open patch of blue sky, a thought started to come to her. “Free, free, free!” escapes her lips.
Mallard repeatedly says “free, free, free!” this statement tells us that even though her marriage appears to be relatively satisfied, what seems more significant to her is her freedom from her husband. She now realizes that her life is free from anything, beause she was experiencing both physical and emotional cruelty from her supposedly husband. One of the outcomes of her husband’s death is to live for herself. In the story, it says that “There stood, facing the open window, a confortable, roomy rmchair”. The open window indicates the importance of her freedom. Now her husband is gone, and she starts to see that life will be
Mrs. Mallard was at first overjoyed with freedom because her husband was supposedly “dead,” yet at the end of the story, Mrs. Mallard comes face to face with Mr. Mallard. A whole new wave of emotions overcame Mrs. Mallard as she laid eyes on her husband instantly killing her from “a heart disease-of joy that kills.” It is ironic how Mrs. Mallard is overjoyed about her husband’s death, and she ended up dying because she found out he was alive instead. Her joy literally was killed, killing her on the inside as
In the short story “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, the reader is introduced to Louise Mallard, the wife of Brently Mallard who supposedly died in a train accident. The story uses multiple literary devices such as irony, conflict and symbolism to convey Mrs. Mallard’s emotions within the hour that she discovers the sudden death of her husband.
The main character in this story, Louise Mallard shows us her dream of freedom and proves these people wrong when her husband, Brently Mallard, dies. Louise’s husband was on a list of people that died in a railroad disaster. They tell her carefully since she has a heart condition. She starts crying, but afterwards she begins to think of all the positive things that come from his death. Her sister, Josephine goes upstairs to make sure she is okay,and once she finds out she is they come down. As they walk down the stairs she sees the door being opened and her husband comes in. Having her heart condition, she dies. The doctors thought “she had died from heart disease-of joy that kills.” However, she didn't die from the joy of getting to see her living husband but from losing her future filled with freedom.
“She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arm’s”, shows that the tone was of despair and heartache. Though, as the sights and sounds of spring reveal themselves through the window, the tone dramatically changes to a tasteful, newfound youth. The thoughts of “delicious breath of rain” or “notes of a distant song” bring the feeling of livelihood to one. Then, the words “Free, free, free!”, express Mrs. Mallard’s realization that her life from now on is her own, and will not be succumbed to the needs and wishes of her husband. Her pulse increases and her chest rises with fervor, as she “recognizes this thing that was approaching to posses her”, which depicts how the tone, once again is about to change.
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.