The women of the 19th century may have seemed like they were content, but behind closed doors, women had little to no control over their own lives. In “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin approaches this controversial topic through the character Mrs. Mallard, whose husband has died. As Mrs. Mallard sulks in her home, she starts to feel liberated and desires to live for herself with her freedom. The tone in the story shifts from melancholic to one of excitement. The theme is that newfound independence brings the promise of happiness into a person’s life. Throughout the story, there are various changes in the tone. One of the tones is melancholy. Chopin creates this tone through the sadness of Mrs. Mallard. According to the text, it says, “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her …show more content…
Another tone of the story is hopeful. In paragraph 19, it says, “Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her.all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long.” With her realization of her freedom, Mrs. Mallard expresses hope in living her life now that her husband has passed. Thus, another identified tone of the story is hopeful. The theme of the story is that newfound independence brings the promise of happiness into a person’s life. In the story, the passing of Mrs. Mallard’s husband has led her to be free, and in realizing this freedom, she becomes overjoyed with the thought of living the rest of her days with a voice. For example, in the text, it says, “But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to the in welcome.” Mrs. Mallard’s happiness and the theme is newfound independence brings the promise of happiness into a person’s life. In conclusion, Chopin’s change of tone through Mrs. Mallard explains the challenges of love and war women faced in the 19th
The Story of an Hour is a short story of Ms. Mallard, a woman with a heart condition who receives short term good news. Chopin uses contrast between independence, marriage, and gender to show how hidden emotions can effect a woman’s actions in the time period where women did not have much power or right to speak what came to their mind.
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.
Kate Chopin wrote a short piece called “The Story of an Hour” about a woman’s dynamic emotional shift who believes she has just learned her husband has died. The theme of Chopin’s piece is essentially a longing for more freedom for women.
Arguably, it can be concluded that the government has not only taken away their strengths and individuality, but also their ability to feel emotion. In contrast, Chopin’s “Story of an Hour” explores themes of control and independence through a husband-wife dynamic. The story was written in 1894, a time when women did not have the right to financial independence unless they were widows. It can be inferred that Mrs. Mallard, the main character, is faced with wifely duties and is not allowed to participate in activities she wishes to because of this. Women were unable to have careers at this time, so any passion Mrs. Mallard might have had would have been impossible.
In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, the struggle for freedom is dominant. The main character, Mrs. Mallard, stands for a woman who is struggling internally and externally for freedom. After the sudden loss of her husband, Mrs. Mallard gets a taste of the freedom she was lacking in her marriage. Like Mrs. Mallard, women throughout history have struggled to find freedom and success away from their husbands. Chopin herself only became successful after the loss of her husband. In “The Story of an Hour”, Chopin shows women’s struggle for freedom during the Victorian period through Mrs. Mallard’s struggle for her own freedom.
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.
For women, the 19th century was a time of inequality, oppression, and inferiority to their male counterparts. A woman's social standing depended solely on her marital status. For these reasons many women were forced to lead a life of solitude and emotional inadequacy, often causing depression. In Kate Chopin's short story "The Story of an Hour," setting plays a significant role in illustrating the bittersweet triumph of Mrs. Mallard's escape from oppression at the ironic cost of her life.
Analysis of “The Story of an Hour”. In her story “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin (1894) uses imagery and descriptive detail to contrast the rich possibilities for which Mrs. Mallard yearns, given the drab reality of her everyday life. Chopin utilizes explicit words to provide the reader with a background on Mrs. Mallard’s position. Chopin uses “She wept at once,” to describe Mrs. Mallard’s emotional reaction once she was told her husband had been “Killed.”
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.
Kate Chopin, author of “The Story of an Hour” written in 1894 was the first author who emphasized strongly on femininity in her work. In the short story, Chopin writes about freedom and confinement Chopin is an atypical author who confronts feminist matter years before it was assumed. The time period that she wrote in women were advertised as a man’s property. The main idea in the short story is to illustrate that marriage confines women. In “The Story of an Hour” the author creates an intricate argument about freedom and confinement Mrs. Louise Mallard longing for freedom, but has been confined for so long freedom seems terrible. Mrs. Mallard wife of Brently Mallard instantly feels free when her husband dies. The reason she feels this way
In “The Story of an Hour” (1894), author Kate Chopin delves into an American woman’s role in society in the 1900’s. The main character and wife, Mrs. Mallard is shown living a boring and dismal life until she is told of her husband’s death in a train crash. Brently Mallard, her husband’s friend, and Josephine, Mrs. Mallard’s sister, tells the news to her carefully in fear of her dying from shock and heartbreak because she is known to have heart problems. But when Mrs. Mallard hears the shocking news, she goes through a bigger change than they could have imagined that ends with a “clear and exalted perception” (Chopin 39). She becomes empowered with the feeling of strength and a new excitement for life. Chopin focuses on the tradition of marriage
The “Story of an Hour” essay by Kate Chopin introduces the reader to Ms. Louise Mallard, who is quite different than other women of her time. Her perception and how she handles things makes her a ‘square peg in a round hole.’ When she is told the news of her husband’s death, her reaction of hearing the news, thinking about her future, and when she finds out the ultimate truth show how different she truly is. When Ms. Mallard heard the news of her husband passing in an accident, she reacted differently in a sense that wasn’t devastating, or even fear. Upon hearing the news first reacted not with paralyzed fear, but she cried out.
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” takes place in the late nineteenth century in the year 1894. The date is important because society at the time was a patriarchal and the role women played in society was very limited. In the story, the main character, Louise Mallard, has a heart condition and in the beginning suffers the loss of her husband, Brently Mallard. When she finds out, she weeps immediately showing her genuine sadness for the loss of her husband. Shortly after grieving, she runs to be alone in her room and finds herself gazing out her window.
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, is truly a representation of the times during the early 1900s for women. Women’s roles during this time were almost strictly restricted to the tending of the household. The husband would go out and work and provide the money for the family to live on and just simply be the man of the house. For many women, we can assume that this made them feel very insignificant, confined, and even imprisoned. These facts are what Chopin bases her story on while emphasizing the feeling of imprisonment and then release when Louise’s husband dies.