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"The Story of the Hour" by Kate Chopin
Irony quotes in the story of an hour by kate chopin
"The Story of the Hour" by Kate Chopin
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“The Story of an Hour” is a powerful and short narrative in which Kate Chopin presents an overlooked idea of marriage and women-related issues. The main character, Mrs. Mallard feels devastated and isolate herself from the family members after receiving a terrifying news about the death of her husband. The reader can identify different sides of her attitude; even though she feel upset about the sudden death, she has something to be happy about, a situation that seem ironical. This piece of literature captures the complex interior lives of women generation by exposing the frustrations, dreams, and desires of her era and their relevance today. Through using ironic and rhetorical phrases, Chopin never allow her readers to be uncertain about the …show more content…
events; they give a response of allegation or empathy for women. This paper provides detailed illustrations to some of the significant phrases that Chopin used in “The Story of an Hour,” by pointing out possible questions that the reader may develop concerning the character, plot or motivation. “When the doctor came they said she had died of heart disease –of joy that kills” (Chopin 48). I chose this phrase because it is one of the essential expressions that direct the overall meaning of the story. It depicts the effect of grief that torn Mrs. Mallard down, both emotionally and physically. I like how Chopin applies paradoxical words to hide the psychological shock under the sweet phrases, which lead to the question: Did happiness following the death of her husband kill her? Knowing that she was distressed with a heart disease, the family members took great care to break the news of the death of her husband. “And yet she had loved him –sometimes. Often she had not. What did is matter!” (Chopin 35). I selected the quote due to its practical application in women’s life today. The phrase is a facetious method of reducing the value of concepts like love, partnership, and faithfulness to insignificant subjects. It clearly shows women’s perception and preservation of the love they have for their husbands in spite of the wrong actions they receive. Chopin describes the husband as a nice individual, filled with love; but the accounts never seem to match the great relief of freedom. The lines on Louse’s face show that she is holding much grief inside, and that she is filled with repression. She is resistant to give her emotions a free rein, which makes her delicate and weak in her marriage that is filled with antagonistic feelings. The use of the word “sometime” is a great emphasis of the idea. Like other women in their marriage, she had love him –sometime, often she had not. “She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shock her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams” (Chopin 15-18).
I like the way this phrase utilizes simile to describe the hopeless behavior of Mrs. Mallard, as a personality who has no options rather than crying. The depiction of the position of her head provides the impression of stress and despair. I think this posture was an approach to acquiring a relaxed position on the cushion of the chair; seemingly anything could bring her comfort in traumatizing situations. I chose this phrase because it illustrates a perfect approach that one can give to stressful situations, especially to those individuals with attention …show more content…
disorder. “Free! Body and soul free! She kept whispering” (Chopin 40).This quote add a twist to the poem since it sounds as if Mrs. Mallard was claiming her victory of achieving freedom. It is an indication of a prolonged desire for liberty and peace; she goes from feeling hopeless, crying, to that of happiness and accomplishment. As if marriage involves a loss of freedom, the notion of being free from marriage signifies the situation as captivity held by a ring. The independence looks beautiful and terrible at the same time; feeling the joy of freedom almost forms Louse into a new person. She became excited about the future, which was a different case before the sad news. “She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will –as powerless as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been” (Chopin 22-25 ).
The quote provides a description of the heart problem experienced by Mrs. Mallard. She is aware of her condition, yet she insists on fighting back. The phrase offers an idea that the character is anticipating her death but is very persistent in struggling internally, to prevent her condition from killing her. It foreshadows the forthcoming occasions regardless of their inevitable nature. It seems the people in her life try to look out for her improvement, especially during the time of the
story. After the reading the Story of an Hour, below are some the questions about character or motivation or plot that are left in mind: 1. Was Mrs. Mallard happy about the death of her husband or was it her hysterical reaction to the irrationality of the condition? 2. After receiving the news concerning the death of her husband, does Mrs. Mallard die of sudden joy or simply the trauma of recalling the same life? 3. Does marriage involve restrictions that affect freedom especially to women? And if so, does the thought of achieving liberation from marriage that is apprehended by a ring bring joy? 4. Why does the Mrs. Mallard’s feelings fluctuate from depression and emotional shocked from the death of her husband, to victorious and happy feelings. 5. Why does Mrs. Mallard feel she has attained freedom? 6. If Mr. Mallard never died, why did his name appear in the list of “killed’? 7. What were some of the reasons that made Mrs. Mallard hate as well as love her husband at time? 8. In her long years of marriage, was Louse looking to towards freedom alone? Conclusion After reading the story, I was baffled and left with more questions that I would have to consider. The questions listed are the type that we encounter in our lives, which some people strive to answer, as some give up the effort. In order to take moral stance in this incredible story, the readers need to look keenly into complex expressions used to illustrate the paradoxical words. This narrative is packed with great details, using many phrases that hides the actual language, feelings, and characterization applied in the story.
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.
In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, it talks about marriage and a woman’s life in the 1800’s. This story illustrates the stifling nature of a woman’s role during this time through Mrs. Mallard’s reaction to her husband’s death. When Mrs. Mallard obtains news that her husband is dead, she is hurt after a brief moment and then she is delighted with the thought of freedom. This story shows how life was in the mid 1800’s and how women were treated around that time.
In conclusion, “The story of an hour” is a clear depiction that women status in the society determines the choices they make about their lives. In this work, Chopin depicts a woman as a lesser being without identity or voices of their own. They are expected to remain in oppressive marriages and submit to their husbands without question.
Chopin displays a need for more independent women in this piece, suggesting that wronged womanhood is the simple fact that society didn’t allow them to be on the same level with men. Mrs. Mallard realizes a “possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being.” This suggests a dying will for independence. Mrs. Mallard realizes that she can now rely upon her self for everything and it will become her number one driving factor in life. After she realizes this, Chopin says Mrs. Mallard thinks “spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own.” When she has days to herself, she will have no one to tell her what to do, as this line suggests her husband used to.
The story begins on a very sad note especially in the eyes of a reader. Mrs. Mallard is said to have a “heart
Mallard gets close to the window and sees the new outside life which a tall tree represents. The narrator shows, “The delicious breath of rain was in the air.” For Mrs. Mallard it can represent a lot of things, but this day she feels like it is a sign of her new beginning. Now she will have the opportunity to be herself and not to be what everyone wants her to be. “She [is] young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength.” She has an entire life in front of her eyes, which now she is able to do what she wants with anyone on her back stopping her. The narrator shows the reader how Mrs. Mallard is not going to live for someone else but herself and even though “…she [loves] him—sometimes. Often she [doesn’t]” No matter how much Brently loves her, sometimes Mrs. Mallard does not feel like loving
Written in 1894, “The Story of an Hour” is a story of a woman who, through the erroneously reported death of her husband, experienced true freedom. Both tragic and ironic, the story deals with the boundaries imposed on women by society in the nineteenth century. The author Kate Chopin, like the character in her story, had first-hand experience with the male-dominated society of that time and had experienced the death of her husband at a young age (Internet). The similarity between Kate Chopin and her heroine can only leave us to wonder how much of this story is fiction and how much is personal experience.
Mrs Mallard, much like Frank Hurley, became aware of the endless possibilities her life could offer following her sudden and eye opening discovery. The realisation of her husbands supposed death inspires the repetition “Free, free, free!” outlining the embracing of her new found freedom as a means of breaking the shackles of her old married life, and plunging into her new life free of the “blind persistence”. Furthermore, the imagery of the open window, “she could see in the open square…all aquiver with new spring life” also symbolises her newfound individuality but more so emphasises the reclamation of her individuality and a new life that solely belongs to her, which stood as a revolutionary concept related to the context of the story as the ninetieth century was an era that limited the progress of women. This imagery also acts as a means of the protagonist escaping the one dimensional “square” of her marriage and truly experiencing all life has to offer for the first time, consequently demonstrating the ways in which discoveries transform and encourage individuals to acquire a new outlook on
A Feminist Perspective on Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour. Kate Chopin employs the tool of irony in "The Story of an Hour" to carefully convey the problem inherent in women's unequal role in marital relationships. Chopin develops a careful plot in order to demonstrate this idea, one not socially acceptable at the end of the 19th century, and unfortunately, a concept that still does not appreciate widespread acceptance today, 100 years later as we near the end of the 20th century. Louise Mallard's death, foreshadowed in the initial line "Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with heart trouble" takes on quite a different meaning when the plot twists and the context of her sudden death is presented unexpectedly, not upon her shock at her husband's death, but instead in her inability to endure the fact that he lives.
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...
At the end, Mrs. Mallard was in sudden shock about her husband not being dead killing her with joy. The ironic part about the story was that she was relieved to be free from the thought husband deaf. And later knowing about his falsify death an hour of meditating gave her a heart attack of “joy” freeing her still of her marriage from over thinking about no longer seeing her
Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour is a brilliant short story of irony and emotion. The story demonstrates conflicts that take us through the character’s emotions as she finds out about the death of her husband. Without the well written series of conflicts and events this story, the reader would not understand the depth of Mrs. Mallard’s inner conflict and the resolution at the end of the story. The conflict allows us to follow the emotions and unfold the irony of the situation in “The Story of an Hour.”
Mallard. Her self-assertion surpassed the years they were married and the love she had for him. She is beginning to realize she can now live for and focus on herself. The text insists “There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature.” (Chopin 477.) Finally she can live freely and no longer worry about being confined in her marriage and inside her own home. She has come to realization that she is now independent and can think freely and achieves happiness and freedom. She is no longer held down or back by her marriage. She will no longer be someone’s possession she will be free and respected. Her husband Brently returns and he is alive the happiness and freedom she once possessed briefly with the mere image of her deceased husband were quickly torn away. “When the doctors came they said she died of heart disease of joy that kills” (Chopin 477). She was free but still confined without the knowledge of her husband who wasn’t dead. Chopin illustrates at the end that she was free because joy killed her. She was joyous because she was finally set free but she is now once again confined by the grief knowing her husband was not killed
“There is no perfect relationship. The idea that there is gets us into so much trouble.”-Maggie Reyes. Kate Chopin reacts to this certain idea that relationships in a marriage during the late 1800’s were a prison for women. Through the main protagonist of her story, Mrs. Mallard, the audience clearly exemplifies with what feelings she had during the process of her husbands assumed death. Chopin demonstrates in “The Story of an Hour” the oppression that women faced in marriage through the understandings of: forbidden joy of independence, the inherent burdens of marriage between men and women and how these two points help the audience to further understand the norms of this time.
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.