An Hour of Freedom
The Story of an Hour, by Kate Chopin is about a wife who is told that her husband died, how she reacts to the news, and how she reacts when he walks in the door alive (428-429). This story is about emotional, intellectual, and physical freedom. It was published in 1894 during a time in American history when women were fighting for equality and starting to see progress. Women just beginning to enter the workforce as opposed to solely taking care of their home and husband. In this story Chopin is illustrating that it is soul crushing for a woman to be under her husband’s complete control. Sexism still exists, in varying degrees, in marriages today, but women are capable human beings who deserve the right to make their own destiny. …show more content…
Mallard faces is more implied than written. Mrs. Mallard discovers the freedom to think and make decisions for herself. She imagines the wonderful life she will live “[s]pring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long” (429). She is elated and sees a wonderful future for herself due to her newfound freedom. When her husband walks in the house everything is taken away from her. She thought she was free, but something seemingly impossible happens so suddenly that she is unable to handle it. Possibility due, in part, to her preexisting heart condition, the doctors report that “she died of heart disease—of joy that kills” (429). The doctors came to this incorrect diagnosis because of a reasonable assumption that if a woman thinks her husband is dead, but suddenly discovers that he is alive, she would be overcome with joy. But, Mrs. Mallard died from a broken heart. She had been living in her husband’s shadow and now her life was whatever she wanted it to be. She gained freedom that made her feel alive and hopeful for her future: “[S]he was drinking in the very elixir of life through that open window” (429). But, a door opens and all of her freedom is sucked out of it as her husband walks in. Her soul was in that epiphany of freedom; she had poured everything she was physically, spiritually, and emotionally into this new version of herself. If she could not have freedom in this world, she could not
The Story of an Hour, by Kate Chopin is about a wife who is told that her husband died, how she reacts to the news, and how she reacts when he walks in the door alive (428-429). This story is about emotional, intellectual, and physical freedom. It was published in 1894 during a time in American history when women were fighting for equality and starting to see progress. Women just beginning to enter the workforce as opposed to solely taking care of their home and husband. In this story Chopin is illustrating that it is soul crushing for a woman to be under her husband’s complete control. Sexism still exists, in varying degrees, in marriages today, but women are capable human beings who deserve the right to make their own destiny. …show more content…
Mallard faces is more implied than written. Mrs. Mallard discovers the freedom to think and make decisions for herself. She imagines the wonderful life she will live “[s]pring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long” (429). She is elated and sees a wonderful future for herself due to her newfound freedom. When her husband walks in the house everything is taken away from her. She thought she was free, but something seemingly impossible happens so suddenly that she is unable to handle it. Possibility due, in part, to her preexisting heart condition, the doctors report that “she died of heart disease—of joy that kills” (429). The doctors came to this incorrect diagnosis because of a reasonable assumption that if a woman thinks her husband is dead, but suddenly discovers that he is alive, she would be overcome with joy. But, Mrs. Mallard died from a broken heart. She had been living in her husband’s shadow and now her life was whatever she wanted it to be. She gained freedom that made her feel alive and hopeful for her future: “[S]he was drinking in the very elixir of life through that open window” (429). But, a door opens and all of her freedom is sucked out of it as her husband walks in. Her soul was in that epiphany of freedom; she had poured everything she was physically, spiritually, and emotionally into this new version of herself. If she could not have freedom in this world, she could not