Story Of An Hour Literary Analysis Essay

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The Story of an Hour is a short story written by Kate Chopin in 1894. This short story details a sickly wife (Louise Mallard) who’s been informed about her husband’s (Brently Mallard) death. Her sister, Josephine, who was told by Richard (one of her husband’s friends) tells her the tragic news. After hearing of this, Louise begins sobbing and goes upstairs to be alone in her room. In the room Louise sits down and looks out the window as she contemplates how her life will change. Instead of her making herself ill thinking of the despair the death of her companion may bring she's actually contemplating how wonderful her life's going to be. In her new life she will no longer be oppressed by a man. She thinks that all women and men oppress one …show more content…

For example, she mentions the symbol of spring. In her room, Mrs, Mallard "could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life." Her heart, too, is all aquiver with a new life and a new hope. There was also “patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.” These patches meant joy and freedom was coming from a life that had once been a full of despair and oppression. The fact that the patches of light seems to appear in the west is slightly ironic. The light towards the west usually represents the end of a day. This can either reinforce the future hope even though she previously longed for her life to end, thinking there would be nothing but restrictions or this can foreshadow her death which takes place after this moment of estatic thoughts. “There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.” The comfortable, roomy armchair represents the rest from her oppressive life and freedom from societal

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