“ The Story of The Hour”
Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" covers about an hour in the life of Louise Mallard. This story keeps the reader in suspense not knowing what is going to happen next. Her sister and a family friend come to tell her that Brently Mallard, her husband, has died in a train accident. This story is very unique, there is only four characters in this story, the plot is not what you aspect and only three main symbols in this story to me. This is a story amazing with such depth to it. Ms. Louise Mallard husband was apparently killed in a train accident so they tought. Louise hears the news that her husband has died, she is secretly happy because she is now free. She is filled with a new desire for life, and although she
…show more content…
She has a heart attack when her husband, is alive after all and comes home. Louise bears from a heart problem, which shows the extent to which she feels that marriage has oppressed her. I believe her heart problems were physical and emotional. Alone in her room, her heart races, and her whole body feels warm. Only when Brently walks in does her heart trouble return, and this trouble is so life threatening that it kills her. The irony of the finale is that Louise does not die of joy as the doctors’ statement but essentially from the loss of happiness. Brently’s death gave her a sign of a new life, and when that new life is quickly taken away, the disbelief and disappointment kill her. Mr. Brently Mallard was Louise’s husband, supposedly killed in a train accident. Although Louise remembers Brently as a kind and loving man, merely being married to him also made him an oppressive factor in her life. Brently arrives home unaware that there had been a train accident. Josephine was Louise’s sister-in-law. Josephine informs Louise about Brently’s death. Richards was Brently’s friend. Richards learns about the train accident and Brently’s death at the newspaper office, and he is there
Louise, the unfortunate spouse of Brently Mallard dies of a supposed “heart disease.” Upon the doctor’s diagnosis, it is the death of a “joy that kills.” This is a paradox of happiness resulting into a dreadful ending. Nevertheless, in reality it is actually the other way around. Of which, is the irony of Louise dying due to her suffering from a massive amount of depression knowing her husband is not dead, but alive. This is the prime example to show how women are unfairly treated. If it is logical enough for a wife to be this jovial about her husband’s mournful state of life then she must be in a marriage of never-ending nightmares. This shows how terribly the wife is being exploited due her gender in the relationship. As a result of a female being treated or perceived in such a manner, she will often times lose herself like the “girl
Brently opens the door at the end of the story, and Louise is surprised to find her husband alive. She was shocked and died of a heart attack. Ironically, the doctor declares “she died of heart disease--of the joy that kills” (Chopin). In the movie we saw, it was different. Louise was kept in the house because Brently is afraid that she might die or because he is afraid that seeing the world could give her an idea to rebel against him.
Louise Mallard has not yet heard the news of her husband’s death. As the news is revealed to her she went into a state of unhappiness, and she had a hard time “accepting the significance” (463). She “wept at once” with “wild abandonment” and the “storm of grief” (463), passed over and she went alone to her bedroom with no one to follow her. The author describes in the previous sentence that the storm of grief has passed over her,
Mallard loved Brently. The narrator elaborates. She loved Brently “sometimes.” Further, the narrator explains that whether Mrs. Mallard loved him “sometimes” or not often it did not matter because when it came to love in their marriage Mrs. Mallard now recognized that the most important part of her life was “this possession of self-assertion.” This self-assertion now consumed her being. It was “the strongest impulse of her being” because now she was “[F]ree! Body and soul free! Mrs. Mallard now wanted her own identity. Entering her room, she was known as Mrs. Mallard. Her identity was through her marriage to Brently Mallard. Through her epiphany of emotions and self-discovery, the reader recognizes Mrs. Mallard to be Louise. She discards her married self and takes on a new persona by “drinking in a very elixir of life through that open
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
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
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.
...t, cruel, and even emotionless. However, this is far from true. Louise Mallard may have been relieved to hear about her husband’s death and she may have died of the disappointment at hearing he was actually alive, but she is only human. She desires freedom from oppression and freedom to be her own woman. She cares deeply for her husband, but he tied her down in a way that she did not like. The weight was far too much to bear, despite what feelings she held for Brently Mallard. She has a wide range of emotions, including the grief toward the death of Mr. Mallard. Mrs. Mallard’s thoughts and feelings are no different than those belonging to any other person.
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.
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.
...dition, so the doctor thought that this weakness was the reason she died.What really killed her was being put back into the role that was forced and expected of her. When her husband walked in, all of her feminine freedom vanished.
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
Brently was dead, that her sister referred to her as just Louise. She suddenly became a person who has control over her own life rather than her husband controlling her. Initially, Mrs. Mallard felt a “storm of grief,” symbolizing the inward sentiments that were seething through her; in any case, as she sits in her room she watches “patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds,” symbolizing a steady move in her feelings. Mrs. Mallard’s “heart trouble” that is mentioned in the beginning can be a form of symbolism. It can give the reader some sort of foreshadowing of what is to come later on. The ironic ending is where her “heart” condition is mentioned again. When the doctor deliver’s the line “the joy that kills” because he is not aware of Mrs. Mallard’s true disappointment and despise towards the man that she thought was dead. The limitation helps better express the themes of the story because being such a short story requires a limited description of Mrs. Mallard’s surroundings. This makes her life seem truly empty and isolated on the inside. The limited setting better represents her emotional distress that she is experiencing with her
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.
Which made me ask myself if the tears that she cried were for the loss of her husband or because she was happy to be finally free? That action made me look at Louise character differently. As I kept reading the story I failed to realize why she only thought she was going to cry again when she saw Brently in the