Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

Improved Essays
Women are no longer muzzled. Most women are enjoying life in today’s society in a way that was not available in the past. The life of luxury and independence they are experiencing in this 21st century is different from what existed in the 19th century. Mrs. Louise Mallard the main character in Kate Chopin “The Story of an Hour”, embrace a feeling of freedom rather than sadness after she learned of her husband’s death, but she got the blow that caused her life when she realized that her husband was still alive. In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, focuses on a late 19th century American woman’s experience with an unhappy marriage, and disappointment.
The way Chopin relates the story shows strong indication that the main character mistress

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of an Hour” has a sad beginning, an understandable middle, but an odd ending. I was upset for Mrs. Mallard in the beginning when she learned of her husband’s death. At first, I just assumed that when Mrs. Mallard “wept at once,” she was just acting like a normal distraught wife. She had heard that her husband had died, and I thought her being upset was acceptable. I did not think anything about it until you get further along in the story.…

    • 216 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Being Let Down “The Story of an Hour” is a short story in which the author, Kate Chopin, tells a story of a rare and unsettling view on the rights and marriages of women in the late eighteen hundreds. The main character, Mrs. Louis Mallard, learns of her husband’s, Brantly Mallard, death in a railroad accident and is rather relieved. Mrs. Mallard feels joy and freedom with the news but why? In “The Story of an Hour” Chopin tells a reflection and view that seems guided and controlled. Mrs. Mallard’s thoughts of being free were over; just as soon as they began.…

    • 808 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Diversified authors will use diversified strategies to catch the attention of the reader. Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman are women that were ahead of their time; they both wrote stories that were socially unacceptable but now they are considered the greatest stories. In Kates Chopin’s short story “The story of an hour” the advocate Mrs. Mallard, she suddenly died of a heart attack after she hears of her husband’s death. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote the short story of “the yellow wallpaper” with a sacrilegious plot at the time: A women, Jane confined to her bed because of nervous depression, she begins to observe a women underneath the wallpaper of their rented mansion. By the end of the story,…

    • 1101 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mallard's Irony

    • 822 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In today’s society, women see themselves as the victim; all they want to have is a voice handed to them on a silver platter. They get to a point where they have been quiet for so long that they need something drastic to happen to get unstuck. In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” the main character, Louise Mallard, becomes extremely cornered behind her husband that she does not feel released until his unexpected death. Therefore, when he appeared alive in the end, Mrs. Mallard returned to her old ways, which led to death. The main conflict in the story does not emerge from gender issues, but it derives from the internal struggle that a woman has to speak for herself; this is supported by Chopin’s use of irony, symbolism, and repetition.…

    • 822 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Louise Mallard

    • 665 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Imagine hearing the news of the passings of a beloved one, but unintentionally having the sense of relief and ease. In “The Story Of An Hour” by Kate Chopin, the female character Mrs. Louise Mallard recieved tragic news from her sister Josephine; her husband was killed in a railroad accident. Louise recognizes that she will mourn her kind, loving husband, who she sometimes loved, but she is also joyful at the prospect of so many years to herself. In the short story, Mrs. Mallard’s actions and thoughts go both in hand and opposition to the feminist theory.…

    • 665 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Kate Chopin Argument

    • 257 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour”, her philosophical argument was that men and women are equals but that society denies women their full humanity. Within the story, her philosophical argument is revealed through Mrs. Mallards use of words and actions. Although Mrs. Mallard loved her husband at times, she was glad that he had passed. His death was her chance to finally live for herself, to do the things in life she had always yearned for. When Chopin went to publish her story, magazines refused her story because they thought of it as immoral.…

    • 257 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout history, women have been denied equal social rights as men and lacked significant individual freedom. Specifically, the Victorian Era (1837 to 1901), witnessed polarized gender roles between males and females. Men were depicted as the leaders of society; they had a voice, important roles, and possessed independence. Contrastingly, women were figuratively trapped at the bottom of the gender patriarchy and their identity and liberty ceased to exist upon marriage. Louise Mallard, the protagonist in The Story of an Hour, is shown to live with the deep suffrage of not only marriage, but a chronic heart condition.…

    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” is more than a grieving widow experiencing euphoria and finding her sense of self; it’s a statement of how a woman’s value and independence was worth during the 19th century. A wife was few more than a trophy for their husbands to showcase towards his fellow compatriots with children and homemaking skills being her only noteworthy talents. The life and death of Louise Mallard shed light on marriage being equivalent to surrendering one’s identity as an individual. The introduction of Mrs. Mallard described her as a meek young woman with a weak heart. Upon being told the news, she grieved loudly over her husband’s sudden death as if she had forgotten how coddling he was.…

    • 1437 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In this story, Kate Chopin was attempting to accurately display the emotions that she had felt at the time of her husband 's death through the emotions of Louise Mallard. Yet another example of how Chopin’s life influenced this piece of work was how Louise felt free after learning of her husband’s death. This is a raw display of just how oppressed women were during Kate Chopin’s lifetime; where a woman may feel free and happy when her husband died. In summary, “The Story of an Hour” is an eye-opening piece of literature that drew heavy influence from Kate Chopin’s life and the time she lived…

    • 1516 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin tells the story of a female protagonist who goes beyond this role in a way that breaks social norms. In this story, Ms. Mallard, a wife with heart problems, is told that her husband has died in a “railroad disaster” and instead of entering into the stereotypical grieving process she finds a new sense of freedom (1609). This…

    • 1264 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin, the main character and protagonist Mrs. Mallard experiences a spiral of emotions, from shock to freedom from her role as a wife; after learning of her husband’s sudden death. This story takes place in the era when women were known as just a wife and mother. In addition, the narrator starts with assuring the reader of Mrs. Mallard’s heart condition; which makes her appear weak from the start. This story expresses on what people know about freedom and humanity through symbolic meanings that are found in myths and religious cultures. The narrator takes an archetypal feminist approach when analyzing Mrs. Mallard’s steps in discovering a free life for herself, without the burdens her husband brought her.…

    • 713 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Chopin shocks the readers Mrs. Mallard 's elated reaction when she whispers that she is “free” (283). The readers are shocked again at the conclusion when she dies upon the return of her husband Mr. Mallard. At the end of the story, the reader gets to read about the heart disease that echoes the heart trouble that is discusses at the start, which intensifies the twist ending that brings the story to a satisfying end. When Chopin was writing this story, she left no room for flashbacks, background information, or even excessive speculation. By doing this, she has succeeded in making every part of the story important through employing an almost poetic writing…

    • 1403 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Introduction The Story of an Hour is written by Kate Chopin in 1894, the story focuses on the emotional changes in Mrs. Mallard learned that her husband died unexpectedly : she first is in anguish, and then gradually becomes ecstasy. This story is generally regarded as ‘a masterpiece of feminist literature to express the awakening of women’s self-consciousness’(Li ChongyueWang Lihua ,2013, 3(2)). In the patriarchal society, Mallard Mrs. is a typical female representative, she is characterized by no discourse power, no freedom, and unconditional obedience to her husband. When she learned that her husband's performance can be seen, Mallard Mrs. is how eager to freedom. But when she saw her husband standing in front of her, she was so exciting…

    • 950 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of an Hour”, a married woman receives news of her husband’s death. The reader follows Mrs. Mallard through her unusual emotional reaction to her husband’s death. In this time period of this story, the late 1800s, it was not unusual for women to marry young and take on all of the household responsibilities. Not many people cared whether the women loved their husbands or their families; the primary focus was on their purpose in the household. The language used throughout the story contributes to the imagery of freedom and life, and shows the reader that marriage is a form of oppression in this time period.…

    • 1351 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the nineteenth century, the time in which Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” takes place, women are considered inferior to men. Mrs. Louise Mallard, the protagonist, lives in a generation where women are expected to live in the shadows of their husbands. And while Mr. Brentley Mallard is alive, Mrs. Mallard fulfills her designated role in society. However, the supposed death of her husband changes her and makes Mrs. Mallard reflect on her true role in the world. Louise Mallard, in wake of her husband’s death, begins to imagine a life where she is no longer constrained by her husband- a life where she is free from the social restrictions society places on nineteenth century women.…

    • 988 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays