“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin

908 Words2 Pages

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.” The story begins with the passage; “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.” The conflict of the story begins here. Mrs. Mallard must be informed of her husband’s death, but there is worry about the condition of her heart and how she will react to the news. The next passage, “It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing,” explains how this initial conflict was resolved. Two people, both close to Mrs. Mallard and Brentley Mallard, came to inform Louise of the bad news. The information was released to her in broken sentences as hints. This means that they did not walk in and tell Mrs. Mallard her husband had died. They used great care to walk around the subject, to lead Mrs. Mallard to her own conclusion that her husband was now dead. (Chopin) Wiggs 2 The conflict continues in the next passage, “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away... ... middle of paper ... ...egaining her husband and all of the loss of freedom her marriage entails. The line establishes that Louise's heart condition is more of a metaphor for her emotional state than a medical reality.” (Koloski) It is ironic that she accepts the death of her husband and is joyous and free, and then he ends up being alive after she walks out of the room with a sense of power. The ending of The Story of an hour by Kate Chopin implies that maybe the only true resolution of conflict is in death. Works Cited Chopin, Kate. ""The Story of an Hour"" VCU.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2013. Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. “Kate Chopin.” Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, Sep2013. Academic Research Database. 1 Nov. 2013 Koloski, Bernard. "Kate Chopin "The Story of an Hour"" Www.katechopin.org. Kate Chopin International Society, 08 Nov. 2013. Web. 08 Nov. 2013.

Open Document