“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin symbolizes the irony of bitter joy by displaying the reader with a woman who is liberated that her husband has died. This is portrayed by Louise’s emotions as she alternates between numbness and joy at her new freedom due to the sudden death of her husband. The narrator describes Louise as sad and weeping, yet warmed and relaxed. No reasons are given to why she was not grief stricken and why she did not feel free in the first place. In this essay, I will explain my views and opinions of why Mrs. Ballard’s emotions were not conventional, why she felt free after the news of her husband’s death, and the irony behind her death in the end. Louise had a heart condition that left her sister, Josephine, wary of breaking the news of her husband’s death to her in fear that it could cause her problems. To the reader’s surprise; however, Louise had the opposite reaction. While weeping and showing glimpses of sadness, she is suddenly overtaken by a calming presence. “Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.” [11] When first reading this part, I visualized an evil woman who hated her husband. After finishing the story, I now believe this symbolizes reality setting in on her and she is She seemed to have felt free for the first time in who knows how long. “She was drinking in the very elixir of life through the open window.” [18] Louise’s seemed to be getting a fresh start at life and she seemed so relieved to be able to enjoy it. Her marriage sounded problematic in her eyes. She could have been a house wife who grew bored after countless years of the same song and dance. I see marriages all the time that seem to have “stood the test of time” and both the husband and the wife seem miserable. The death of Brently may have opened up a door to a new life that Louise was anxious to
Louise left the country to go stay with Albert Hardy and his family in the city, so she could attend school. Louise was very lonely growing up, her mother died when she was an infant and her father never showed her much love. When moving to the city she found herself to be even lonelier than before. Although she was living with the Hardy family which consisted of Mr. Albert, his two daughters, and his son John Hardy. Louise craved some type of companionship. Louise had a plan to make John Hardy her new companion, she
A Roller Coaster of Emotions in A Story of An Hour In the short story “A Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin, the whole range. of emotions are felt by the main charter, Louise Mallard. Upon learning of her husband's death, she is immediately overcome by sadness. However, once she is.
In The Story of an Hour, the main character, Mrs. Louise Mallard, is a young woman with a heart condition who learns of her husband’s untimely death in a railroad disaster. Instinctively weeping as any woman is expected to do upon learning of her husband’s death, she retires to her room to be left alone so she may collect her thoughts. However, the thoughts she collects are somewhat unexpected. Louise is conflicted with the feelings and emotions that are “approaching to possess her...” (Chopin 338). Unexpectedly, joy and happiness consume her with the epiphany she is “free, free, free!” (Chopin 338). Louise becomes more alive with the realization she will no longer be oppressed by the marriage as many women of her day were, and hopes for a long life when only the day prior, “…she had thought with a shudder that life may ...
However, once the lights change everything goes back to normal. Giving the play a sense of mystery: is Louise actually getting better, or is Nell only imagining her daughter getting better? The mood for the play for myself is between mystery, as the audience wonders if Nell is telling the truth, and melancholy when Billie is trying to see what Nell is telling her about her
In paragraph 3, Louise did not take the news as most women and not understand the fact that her husband has past and instead she accepted the fact and abruptly broke into tears. Smothered by grief Louise stormed off to her room without having anyone to follow her. In paragraph 4 and 5, Once in her room she sat down in an armchair looking out a window into the first signs of spring and the effects of physical exhaustion her husbands death set it. In paragraph 9 Louise began to feel something coming upon her and she feared it gratefully. At the time she did not know what the feeling was. As the minutes went by the feeling became stronger and stronger as began to breath harder and harder. In paragraph 11 she recognized the feeling and tried to push it away but then she let her slightly parted lips say free, free, she knew now the relief of living the rest of her life the way she wanted and happy. At this point she opened up to the feelings in open arms, as said in paragraph 12. In paragraph 13 it explains her feelings now and how she was happy and knew she was going to live her life for herself. In paragraph 16 Josephine says “Louise open the door! I beg; open the door,
In "The Story of an Hour" Kate Chopin tells the story of a woman, Mrs. Mallard whose husband is thought to be dead. Throughout the story Chopin describes the emotions Mrs. Mallard felt about the news of her husband's death. However, the strong emotions she felt were not despair or sadness, they were something else. In a way she was relieved more than she was upset, and almost rejoiced in the thought of her husband no longer living. In using different literary elements throughout the story, Chopin conveys this to us on more than one occasion.
Mrs. Mallard’s sister, Josephine, was the one who told Louise Mallard of her husband’s death. Josephine told her “in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing”(Chopin 628). If Josephine were to have known the joy Louise felt, she
In “The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin creates a theme of heartbreak and shows this through independence that is a forbidden pleasure. When Louise hears from Josephine and Richards about Brently’s, her husband's, death, she reacts with obvious agony. Louise then starts to realize that she is now an independent woman, and at this realization she becomes excited to her new found independence. Even though these are her private thoughts, she at first tries the joy she feels, to “beat it back with her will—as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.” ( 1 ). With this, it shows that if you hold something back for so long, with how the forbidden this pleasure can be so appealing.
Irony can often be found in many literary works. “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is masterfully written full of irony. The characters of the short story, Mrs. Mallard, Josephine, Richards, Mr. Brently Mallard, and the doctors all find their way into Chopin’s ironic twists. Chopin embodies various ironies in “The Story of an Hour” through representations of verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony.
Louise has turned into a little girl that must depend on man to take care of her. Louise pleads with Brently to go to the gardens of Paris. She begs like a child begging for something that is impossible to give. Brently must lock her up in their home to protect her from her curiosity and need to see the world. The filmmakers do not give her the commonsense to realize the dangers she would face in seeing Paris and all the other places she would like to visit. Louise remains the little girl in the flashbacks and Brently has replaced her dead father as the soul keeper of her world. Brently must protect her from the world and herself. She is made to be completely dependent on him from her everyday needs to being her only window into the outside world. There are no female positions of authority in her life. Aunt Joe is left in the background and Marjorie must ultimately answer to Brently. Louise is left to see men as the only authority in her life. She herself as a woman must feel powerless to the will of men. Brently even chooses the destinations of their daily visits to far off and exotic places. These excursions are Louise's only escape. Brently is made to be her captor and savior at the same time. Her fate is completely dependent in his yet she is given no control of either.
Kate Chopin's story, "The Story of an Hour", focuses on an 1890's young woman, Louise Mallard. She experienced a profound emotional change after she hears her husband's "death" and her life ends with her tragic discovery that he is actually alive. In this story, the author uses various techniques-settings, symbolism and irony- to demonstrate and develop the theme: Freedom is more important than love.
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of An Hour” focuses on a woman named Louise Mallard and her reaction to finding out about her husband’s death. The descriptions that the author uses in the story have significance in the plot because they foreshadow the ending.
This short story is about a woman, Louise Mallard, who suffers from heart disease and receives notice that her husband has passed in a terrible train accident. Her sister fears that the horrible news about her partner will be too much stress on her and will ultimately kill her. After
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.
...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.