“Story of An Hour," written by Kate Chopin is a story about a woman who is not only suffering in her health but also in her marriage. The story is set in the Mallard family home. This sparseness of setting was chosen deliberately by Chopin to express the story’s key theme: a longing for personal freedom. Visitors in the Mallard home seem to demonstrate great care and respect for her medical issues but do not seem to be aware of her suffering marriage. The chief victim of this distressed way of life is the story’s protagonist, Mrs. Louise Mallard. She is a woman who quickly takes on a different angle of life with her new sense of freedom.
Mrs. Mallard is a sick woman; afflicted with a heart trouble. So, great care is taken by Josephine, Mrs. Mallard's sister, to break her the news as gently as possible when it is thought that her husband was killed in a horrific train accident. Predictably, Mrs. Mallard reacts to the news with tears as she flees upstirs, locking herself in her room.
This is where we can see a change in Mrs. Mallard’s character. She beings to realize, despite her initial opposition, she is now free. Mrs. Mallard knows she will mourn her husband’s death, but she also predicts many years of freedom, which she welcomes. She dreams of her future, in which she will live without the burden of others. She loved her husband, but the
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Mallard's reasoning for her feelings toward her husband originated from how the roles of women were seen in the late nineteenth century compared to how they are seen in the world today. Men were considered superior to women as women were not considered as equals. American wives were under strict control of the husbands; they set the rules and boundaries for women, much like Mr. Mallard had done for his wife. Although Chopin does not directly cite the old-fashioned second-class situation of women in the text, Mrs. Mallard’s exclamations of “free, free, free!” are highly suggestive of the historical
Mrs. Mallard’s husband is thought to be dead, and since she has that thought in her mind she goes through many feelings
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.
The first example of contrast is in the quality of Mr. And Mrs. Mallards marriage. To understand Chopin 's clever style, the reader must consider the time period for the setting of the story. Written in 1894 during the Women 's Suffrage Movement, in other words, women fought to get the right to vote and be seen as equals. "There would be no powerful will bending her in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature" (
...her room she will no longer be bound to her husband but rather free to do what she wants whenever she chooses to. Mrs. Mallard is at last apart from a person who was once somebody she loved but then started to dislike him because of his selfishness towards her. Then at last she comes to a point when she sees him and dies because she knows she will be jailed up again with his possession with her.
In 1940’s, women did not have a lot of rights. They were denied in the politics and still had not allowed to vote. Chopin illustrated “Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart troub...
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...
Through her use of diction and symbolism, Chopin was able to show the struggle of women against the backdrop of a patriarchal society. Her precise use of words allows her to convey the foreshadowing that helps the reader see past what Mrs. Mallard can see and understand the ending fully. This also allows her to give insight into how bright she saw that this new life could be. The symbolism helps to show the reader, deeply, the emotions that Mrs. Mallard was feeling and the norms pushed on women during the time. These literary devices come together to reveal the theme of the story. It is more important to strive to be free than to be chained to love.
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).
Mrs. Mallard is described as being young and having "a fair, calm face" symbolizing the beauty and innocence of a child. Brently Mallard had repressed her, and now through this seemingly tragic event she is freed of his rule over her and she is able to go on with her life.
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...
In “The Story of an Hour”, Kate Chopin expresses many themes through her writing. The main themes of this short story are the joy independence brings, the oppression of marriage in nineteenth century America, and how fast life can change.
In conclusion, Chopin’s change of tone through Mrs. Mallard explains the challenges of love and war women faced in the 19th
She is described as “young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength.” Her husband, Brently Mallard, is away and new comes that he has perished in a horrific train accident. Her sister, Josephine, gently breaks the news to her. She
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.