Throughout the late 19th century women questioned the domineering patriarchal society of the time and demanded augmented rights and freedom. In “The Story of an Hour” Kate Chopin, through Mrs. Mallard’s experience with her husband’s death, contemplates the existence and effects of societal biases towards women and the harmful attributes of marriage as an institution. In particular, Chopin employs the downstairs section at the beginning to characterize society's notion of Mrs. Mallard as feeble and at the end of the story to reveal the negative consequences of societal preconceptions on her. When Mrs. Mallard goes upstairs, she initially affirms the societal preconceptions of dependant and weak women, but ultimately accepts her independence
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Mallard goes back downstairs, she realizes that her freedom is inexistent and society‘s preconceptions will never let her be free, which eventually kills her. As soon as she is downstairs, she is immediately treated as a feeble female when Richard attempts to “screen him from the view of his wife” (Chopin 244). By attempting to screen Mrs. Mallard, Richard implies that the shock of seeing her husband would cause her to have a heart attack, because she was a frail woman incapable of handling her husband’s reappearance. Even though she does die when seeing her husband, this is caused by her strength and reluctance to give up her freedom and not her weak character. Mrs. Mallard in turn realizes that the notion that she could defy society’s views of weak and dependant women vanishes instantaneously with her husband’s return. As a result, she dies because she is unwilling to confine to society’s view of women, symbolized through Richard’s actions, due to her newfound accepted autonomy. When Mrs. Mallard dies at the end, the narrator claims that “when the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease- of joy that kills” (Chopin 244). This shows that once freed from the repressiveness of marriage, Mrs. Mallard is unable to reenter marriage because she is unwilling to give up her new freedom. She in turn dies from the shock caused by the abrupt loss of her new autonomous life, the real “joy” that kills her and not the “joy” of seeing her husband alive as the doctors suggest. The constraint of marriage is a direct cause of her death and death itself is characterized as an effect of marriage’s confinement. Therefore, when Mrs. Mallard goes back downstairs society’s grasp regains control over her and abruptly kills her, which shows the negative consequences of marriage and societal beliefs on
Mallard goes back downstairs, she realizes that her freedom is inexistent and society‘s preconceptions will never let her be free, which eventually kills her. As soon as she is downstairs, she is immediately treated as a feeble female when Richard attempts to “screen him from the view of his wife” (Chopin 244). By attempting to screen Mrs. Mallard, Richard implies that the shock of seeing her husband would cause her to have a heart attack, because she was a frail woman incapable of handling her husband’s reappearance. Even though she does die when seeing her husband, this is caused by her strength and reluctance to give up her freedom and not her weak character. Mrs. Mallard in turn realizes that the notion that she could defy society’s views of weak and dependant women vanishes instantaneously with her husband’s return. As a result, she dies because she is unwilling to confine to society’s view of women, symbolized through Richard’s actions, due to her newfound accepted autonomy. When Mrs. Mallard dies at the end, the narrator claims that “when the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease- of joy that kills” (Chopin 244). This shows that once freed from the repressiveness of marriage, Mrs. Mallard is unable to reenter marriage because she is unwilling to give up her new freedom. She in turn dies from the shock caused by the abrupt loss of her new autonomous life, the real “joy” that kills her and not the “joy” of seeing her husband alive as the doctors suggest. The constraint of marriage is a direct cause of her death and death itself is characterized as an effect of marriage’s confinement. Therefore, when Mrs. Mallard goes back downstairs society’s grasp regains control over her and abruptly kills her, which shows the negative consequences of marriage and societal beliefs on