Female Repression In Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

In Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour, we are introduced to Mrs. Louise Mallard, a woman with heart trouble, who processes the news of her husband's death and the freedom that she imagined would come of it. As Louise runs through the motions of understanding that her life is now her own, her feeling of liberation uncovers the theme of female repression and its severity of the time. Chopin executes the story with great emphasis on the discovery of liberation, and how even at the cost of her husband, Mrs. Mallard would receive true joy.
In order to deliver the news of Mr. Mallards death ever-so-delicately, her husband’s friend confirms it is true, and her sister Josephine informs her. It is made clear that she is fragile, yet she reacts with independence. After a quick weep, Louise flees to her room, and “would have no one follow her” (p. 630). As Mrs. Mallard processes the news, the author describes different tiers her of emotion. She begins with sorrow, but quickly phases into a state of gazing and thought, …show more content…
Mallard to be flooded with the appropriate emotions, and her mind carved the idea of being free. The kind of free she is overcome with is a confusing one, in which she gathers that her husband's death meant “years to come that would belong to her absolutely” (p. 631). The reader can only assume that Mrs. Mallard was anything but free with her husband, and in their marriage. The kind of repression where only his death could liberate her describes the time frame, for divorce was too taboo ever to consider, and not marrying was hardly an option. The author describes Louise's feelings towards her marriage and her recent experience when she says “What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!” (p. 631). Chopin explains the character understands that his love was and would never be enough to compare to her newfound