“The Story of an Hour” is a stark display of female rejection of the norms of society. This work, by Kate Chopin, begins with a woman going through the stages of grief for her husband’s death. For the wife, Louise Mallard, this was an awakening of a new life. This new life is cut short as the information that led her to believe this news turns our false. Kate Chopin reveals that even the desire for love is trumped by the need for freedom and independence, through her use of precise diction and syntax, and symbolism. With respect to word choice, Chopin foreshadows the idea that it was possible that Mrs. Mallard’s husband was not dead at all. From the start she describes the news as “possible” (79). To further show this, she chooses to use the word killed in quotation marks (79). It is possible that this was just to set off the title of the news, but the foreshadowing it implies is far too great to disregard. It is this foreshadowing that gives the reader knowledge of the ending, which ties the idea that Mrs. Mallard, while sad, would rather see her freedom than the life of her husband. Diction is also very important in showing that Mrs. Mallard was seeing life in a brand new way. When leaving the main room where the news of her husband’s death was given, Louise Mallard would not allow anyone to follow her to the upper floor (79). While she has not yet grasped that the freedom she seeks can be attained through the events taking place, this is her first move toward independence. When being called back down to the bottom room by her sister she resists once more. Her freedom is now manifesting itself as strength, in this case, to resist the orders of those who impose them against her. To show her newly found independence, Chopin desc... ... middle of paper ... .... Now that she is strong, independent, and free, she is allowed to have a name. Through her use of diction and symbolism, Chopin was able to show the struggle of women against the backdrop of a patriarchal society. Her precise use of words allows her to convey the foreshadowing that helps the reader see past what Mrs. Mallard can see and understand the ending fully. This also allows her to give insight into how bright she saw that this new life could be. The symbolism helps to show the reader, deeply, the emotions that Mrs. Mallard was feeling and the norms pushed on women during the time. These literary devices come together to reveal the theme of the story. It is more important to strive to be free than to be chained to love. Works Cited Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." Introduction to Literature. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2012. 79-81. Print.
“The Story of an Hour” written by Kate Chopin, published in 1894, tells a story of a woman who believes she will now experience freedom from her repressive marriage. Chopin records the rollercoaster of emotions Mrs. Mallard felt after learning of her husband’s death. Mrs. Mallard experiences strong emotions but not of grief or despre but rather freedom and joy. After the death of her husband she realizes the limitless potential of her own self-assertion. In the story, the reader sees the common view of marriage in the late nineteenth hundreds. Mrs. Mallard felt free from a redistricting and sheltering marriage and becomes self possessed. Later, when Mrs. Mallard learns that her husband still lives, she know that all hope of freedom is gone. With the use of symbolism and characterization, Chopin creates the under lining theme
Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." Literature: Approaches to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Boston:
The symbols and imagery used by Kate Chopin's in “The Story of an Hour” give the reader a sense of Mrs. Mallard’s new life appearing before her through her view of an “open window” (para. 4). Louise Mallard experiences what most individuals long for throughout their lives; freedom and happiness. By spending an hour in a “comfortable, roomy armchair” (para.4) in front of an open window, she undergoes a transformation that makes her understand the importance of her freedom. The author's use of Spring time imagery also creates a sense of renewal that captures the author's idea that Mrs. Mallard was set free after the news of her husband's death.
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.
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” Backpack Literature. 4th ed. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson: 2012. 168-170. Print.
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 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.” Mrs. Mallard cared for and loved her husband; being married was the only way of life that she knew.
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.
Mallard at the end of the story stands for the suffrage of women during this time to be free. She would rather die than lose her newfound freedom. Chopin’s biography before the story states “[t]he loss of her husband, however, led to her assuming responsibilities…Eventually devoting herself entirely to writing” (30). Her success was found only after she was free from her marriage; Chopin herself could have been hinting to the fact the she would have rather died than lose her own freedom. Chopin also uses the heart condition to kill Mrs. Mallard. She writes “the doctors…said she had died of a heart disease—of the joy that kills” (32). The metaphor of the heart condition standing for the weakness put on women returns with her husband. She is no longer strong and free; she is weak and trapped by her marriage. Chopin uses this purposely to show that women are weak in marriage and need to be set
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 through the acts of forbidden joy and the oppression of marriages contributes to the understanding of the work and the time that it was written. The story opens with the reader knowing that Mrs. Mallard was, “afflicted with heart trouble” (Chopin, 15), suggesting a more symbolic notion that she is ambivalent towards her marriage and expresses her unhappiness towards he lack of freedom. Mrs. Mallard ultimately throughout the story questions the meaning of love and rejects it as meaningless. It is arguable to say that Chopin was influenced by women’s roles and other writings at the time, which contributed to her understanding of the meaning of love and courtship. This understanding could be said that it was altered and became more dejected. When Mrs. Mallard dies in the end of the story, it is ironic that she was to die of “heart disease.” This particular death proves that Chopin’s claims of the loss of joy and the return to oppression would kill a woman in this time since independence was a right to be given through the death of their husbands. Another symbolic figure that Chopin uses is the use of the open window, which Mrs. Mallard sees, “blue sky showing here and there through the clouds” (Chopin, 15). The window is Mrs. Mallard’s salvation, ultimately concluding that Chopin doesn’t see any other way for women to be free of their prison during this time. This window acts as a barrier between life and death itself. Once Mrs. Mallard turns away
Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Eds. John Schilb, and John Clifford. 5th. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. 705-706. Print.
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.
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of An Hour” focuses on a woman named Louise Mallard and her reaction to finding out about her husband’s death. The descriptions that the author uses in the story have significance in the plot because they foreshadow the ending.
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
Rebecca Kallios 9/11/17 Essay #1. “The Story of an Hour” Plot Analysis “The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin tells the fictional account of a woman who learns of her husband dying in a train crash and the ensuing hour after she is given that news. Within that hour, the protagonist Mrs. Mallard grieves over the loss of her husband, but also realizes a newfound freedom that she didn’t have being married. Chopin focuses on the theme of freedom, especially in terms of a woman’s role in marriage at the time the story was published (December 1894). In the short story “The Story of an Hour,” author Kate Chopin uses elements of the plot to evoke empathy and demonstrate how marriage affected a woman’s freedom in the late nineteenth century.