Katherine O’Flaherty, also known as Kate Chopin after her marriage, wrote many stories, but one of her most famous ones was “The Story of an Hour”, written on April 19th, 1894 (“The Story”). The original name of the story was “The Dream of an Hour” but Kate changed it after begin published by Vogue on December 6th that same year (“The Story”). Kate being born in St. Louis, Missouri, gave her many experiences and hardships as a woman. Kate grew up in the era of enfranchisement for white males, where no woman was equal to men; she wrote this short story to show female empowerment because woman had no rights and were seen as “inferior” to men (“The Story”). Here, we are going to be evaluating the elements within “The Story of an Hour”. During the time Kate was alive, she lived in a time period where the enfranchisement of black men came before the voting rights of women as a whole; this was when many social and cultural questions began to arise and one of them were about when women will be treated as equals (“The Story”). Most of her stories concerned women’s issues such
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Louise Mallard, the woman with the “heart disease” that is slowly but surely getting worse, had been informed that her husband, Brently Mallard, had been killed in a train station accident by her sister, Josephine, and her husband’s friend, Richards (Kate Chopin, 563). Mrs. Mallard cries for a while and climbs the staircase to her room where she tells them both not to follow her; she begins to mourn his death but a sense of relief and freedom overcomes her. She realizes that she is free from him and can live for herself. Josephine calls to her and she opens the door, they begin to descend downstairs when her “supposed to be” dead husband walks through the door. The shock gets to her and her heart gives out and she dies. Her cause of death was “the joy that kills” (Kate Chopin,
Louise Mallard, the woman with the “heart disease” that is slowly but surely getting worse, had been informed that her husband, Brently Mallard, had been killed in a train station accident by her sister, Josephine, and her husband’s friend, Richards (Kate Chopin, 563). Mrs. Mallard cries for a while and climbs the staircase to her room where she tells them both not to follow her; she begins to mourn his death but a sense of relief and freedom overcomes her. She realizes that she is free from him and can live for herself. Josephine calls to her and she opens the door, they begin to descend downstairs when her “supposed to be” dead husband walks through the door. The shock gets to her and her heart gives out and she dies. Her cause of death was “the joy that kills” (Kate Chopin,