“The Story of an Hour” “The Story of an Hour” is a short story by American author Kate Chopin with was written in 1894. At that time women didn't have the right to vote and were marginalized by their respective husbands. The story is about the reaction of Mrs. Louise Mallard after learning about her husband’s death. Louise’s husband treated her well and loved her, however that doesn't compensate with the lost of freedom that she had lost for being married. Thus, when she found out that her husband was dead she experimented a confused stage of controversial feelings between Mr. Mallard’s death vs her freedom. Even though Louise Mallard admits that she loves her husband, at the same time she feels guiltless
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Her new world was destroyed and all she dreamed were gone. Basically the fact that her husband was not dead kills her freedom and as a consequence kills her. With the story, Chopin suggest that marriage, regardless of the type of love and the intentions, result in loss of freedom and repression. The story reflects feminist finding for herself and a world dominated for the male. “The Story of an Hour” is an inspiration in Kate Chopin’s life and the protagonist (Louise Mallard) is a representation of her mother Eliza O’Flaherty. A story in which an unhappy wife is suddenly widowed, becomes rich and lives happily ever after— Eliza O’Flaherty’s story— would have been too much radical, far to threatening, in the 1890s. But if young Kate’s father, irritated by her chatter or her defiant curiosity, was the one who sent her to boarding school at age of five — then “The Story of an Hour” is also the tale of her own liberation. Louise Mallard’s freedom is an illusion — but in real life, the crash that killed Tomas O’Flaherty liberated his daughter to come home, to be raised among the powerful woman of her family. Her father’s death kept Kate O’Flaherty from growing up in the typical nineteenth-century patriarchal household, in which a powerful husband ruled the roost.
Her new world was destroyed and all she dreamed were gone. Basically the fact that her husband was not dead kills her freedom and as a consequence kills her. With the story, Chopin suggest that marriage, regardless of the type of love and the intentions, result in loss of freedom and repression. The story reflects feminist finding for herself and a world dominated for the male. “The Story of an Hour” is an inspiration in Kate Chopin’s life and the protagonist (Louise Mallard) is a representation of her mother Eliza O’Flaherty. A story in which an unhappy wife is suddenly widowed, becomes rich and lives happily ever after— Eliza O’Flaherty’s story— would have been too much radical, far to threatening, in the 1890s. But if young Kate’s father, irritated by her chatter or her defiant curiosity, was the one who sent her to boarding school at age of five — then “The Story of an Hour” is also the tale of her own liberation. Louise Mallard’s freedom is an illusion — but in real life, the crash that killed Tomas O’Flaherty liberated his daughter to come home, to be raised among the powerful woman of her family. Her father’s death kept Kate O’Flaherty from growing up in the typical nineteenth-century patriarchal household, in which a powerful husband ruled the roost.