The Story of a Different Hour
Mrs. Millard just found out that Mr. Millard was killed in a tragic train wreck. Because of a heart condition, Josephine (Mrs. Millard's sister) was hesitant to tell her what happened. Richard (Mr. Millard's good friend) was also there to comfort the newly widowed Mrs. Millard. Josephine was concerned for her sister.
To everyone?s surprise Mrs. Millard was rather joyful rather than devastated of the tragic news about her husband. ?Free! Free! Free!?, ?Free! Body and free soul?. Everyone was a bit confused, why Louise was jumping for joy when she just received that her husband passed away few minutes ago.
Something smells fishy in this story and who really is Richard? Is he a good friend of Mr. Millard or he is a lover of Louise?.. Well, we will modify some sentences in this story. We all knew what happened in the end. Mrs. Millard was having the time of her life because she just found out that her husband just died.
Was Louise happy because of the hefty insurance money that her husband left her?
We can?t tell. So as the door was being opened by a latchkey everyone ran through the long stair case and found ?Brently Millard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella?, then Louise was so flabbergasted that she had a heart attack and eventually died.
In my opinion the story could use a better ending than Louise dying at the end of the story. If only Chopin talked to me about this story before she published it in 1894 it would probably be a little different. We left of where before Brently opened the door.
After Brently died, Louise was alone in her huge plantation. She asked Josephine to move in with her because she can?t bear to be alone any longer. One day Richard dropped by to check on Louise and to drop the title of the house, Richard is a prominent lawyer nowadays.
Richard stayed for supper, and Louise told him ?
In the beginning of “Story of an Hour” the readers are introduced to Louise Mallard who found out that her husband has died in an accident. Louise reacts to the news like we would expect any wife would. At first she is obviously upset so she excuses herself and rushes off to her bedroom to have some space. While in her room she realizes that she in some sense she was happy. Now she had her freedom. “When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under the breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and r...
Berkove also says the story is not at all about marriage, but about Louise. The story is missing evidence of where the husband is supposal living for his wife. All these examples support the fact thesis of Louise is self-absorbed.
The widow whispers "Free, free, free!" Louise realizes that her husband had loved her, but she goes on to explain that as men and women often inhibit eachother, even if it is done with the best of intentions, they exert their own wills upon eachother. She realized that although at times she had loved him, she has regained her freedom, a state of beeing that all of G-d's creatures strive for.
There is nothing glaringly wrong with the marriage between Brently and Louise Mallard. There is no evidence of abuse or neglect. Mr. Mal...
b. Josephine: Mrs.Mallard's sister. She was who told Mrs.Mallard the notice about her husband death. c. Richard: Mr.Mallard's friend. He heard about the notice about his suppose death.
Louise is trapped in her marriage. The lines of her face "bespoke repression" (paragraph 8). When Louise acknowledges that her husband is dead, she knows that there will "be no powerful will bending her" (paragraph 14). There will be no husband who believes he has the "right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature" (paragraph 14). Louise knows that her husband loved her. Brently had only ever looked at Louise with love (paragraph 13). This tells the reader that Brently is not a horrible ma...
Her sister, Josephine, broke the news to her “in broken sentences, veiled hints that revealed in half concealing”. After hearing of her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard locks herself in her room to mourn. She sits in a chair facing an open window and begins to sob. As she sat gazing at an open patch of blue sky, a thought started to come to her. “Free, free, free!” escapes her lips.
Unfortunately, her hope for long years and many beautiful spring days was abruptly ended in an ironic twist. Unbeknownst to herself and her company, Mr. Mallard had survived, and within an hour the promises of a bright future for Mrs. Mallard had both began and came to an end. Her grievous death was misconstrued as joy to the others: "they said she had died of heart disease-of joy that kills" (Chopin 471). This statement embodies the distorted misconception that a woman lives only for her man. The audience, in fact, sees just the opposite. To Louise her life was elongated at the news of her husband's death, not cut short. Throughout the story, one hopes Louise will gain her freedom. Ironically, she is granted freedom, but only in death.
At the beginning of the story, Josephine, Louise’s sister, attempts to break the news of her husband’s death to her “as gently as possible” so as to not cause heart failure (477). The main concern is that Louise will be so devastated over the loss of her husband, that it will cause a premature death, but a factor that many overlook or don’t expect is Louise’s sudden change of heart and her realization of all the freedom she will gain after Brently’s death.
The main character in this story, Louise Mallard shows us her dream of freedom and proves these people wrong when her husband, Brently Mallard, dies. Louise’s husband was on a list of people that died in a railroad disaster. They tell her carefully since she has a heart condition. She starts crying, but afterwards she begins to think of all the positive things that come from his death. Her sister, Josephine goes upstairs to make sure she is okay,and once she finds out she is they come down. As they walk down the stairs she sees the door being opened and her husband comes in. Having her heart condition, she dies. The doctors thought “she had died from heart disease-of joy that kills.” However, she didn't die from the joy of getting to see her living husband but from losing her future filled with freedom.
Chopin describes her as a fragile woman. Because she was “afflicted with a heart trouble,” when she receives notification of her husband’s passing, “great care was taken” to break the news “as gently as possible” (1). Josephine, her sister, and Richards, her husband’s friend, expect her to be devastated over this news, and they fear that the depression could kill her because of her weak heart. Richards was “in the newspaper office when the intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of killed” (1). He therefore is one of the first people to know about his death. Knowing about Mrs. Mallard’s heart, he realizes that they need to take caution in letting Mrs. Mallard know about it. Josephine told her because Richards feared “any less careful, less tender” person relaying the message to Louise Mallard (1). Because of her heart trouble, they think that if the message of her husband’s death is delivered to her the wrong way, her heart would not be able to withstand it. They also think that if someone practices caution in giving her the message, that, ...
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
From the beginning of “The Story of an Hour”, Louise seems to be portrayed as quite a frail woman. Though she is young, we find out that she already has “a heart trouble” which could correspond with some sort of problems in her marriage....
She is marginalize from society by her partner and she has to live in the shadows of him. She is unbelievably happy when she found out about the death of her husband. She expresses her feelings of freedom in her room where she realize she will live by herself. This illustrates that Louise has been living in an inner-deep life disconnected form the outside world where only on her room away from family and friends she discovers her feelings. It is important to mention that even though Louise has a sister, she does not feel the trust to communicate her sentiments towards her. We discover a marginalization from family members and more surprising from a women, Louise’s sister. The narrator strictly described Louise’s outside world but vividly reveals what is in her mind. At the same time she feels guilty of her emotional state by recognizing that she loved Brently mallard sometimes, her husband. Louise contradict herself but this demonstrates her emotional feelings about her husband disregarding her marriage. The situation of this woman represents the unhappiness and disgraceful life that women had to suffer from their
There are however three other characters in the short story and neither their presence nor meaning is clear, but instead left, perhaps intentionally, ambiguous. These secondary characters are Richards and Josephine, and to a lesser extent, Brently Mallard the husband of Louise. Although Josephine is the one of these that has any lines of dialogue, the role of Richards in the events of the story is arguably much more significant than that of Josephine. He actually serves as the catalyst for the entire story, and without him this hour over which the story takes place would likely be indistinguishable from any other. While there are only five sentences in the story that mention Richards, his character is perhaps the most mysterious and intriguing because of the specific details that are omitted by Chopin and left to be interpreted by the reader. Without any dialogue or insight pertaining to his thoughts or motivations from the narrator his reasons for his actions are uncertain.