Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

In Kate Chopin’s 1894 short story “The Story of an Hour”, the author presents an omniscient observer’s view of the last hour of Mrs. Louise Mallard. The main character is presented as a woman of delicate health who learns of her husband’s death in a railway accident. With her is her sister, Josephine and her husband’s friend Richards. Richards informs Mrs. Mallard of the horrific accident. Mrs. Mallard ascends to her room alone to celebrate her freedom that comes of her husband’s death. Her husband returns home and appears not wounded from the accident and Mrs. Mallard collapses. It appears she did not die of shock but of heart disease. “Of joy that kills.” (130). The question of the hour is why is Mrs. Mallard overjoyed of her husband’s death? Does she really die of joy?
“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin was written in 1894, in this period women didn’t have any power and didn’t have a say …show more content…
The story opens up with introducing Mrs. Mallard when she learns of her husband’s horrific railway accident. She reacts to the horrible news like any other wife would sadden. In fact so upset she excuses herself to her bedroom to be alone. When in her room alone we meet another side to Mrs. Mallard, she is somehow happy and overjoyed. Yet still saddened of her husband’s death, she is happy and excited for her new found freedom. “And yet she had loved him-sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being. “Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering. (129) For the first time you see Mrs. Mallard coming out of her shell. Behind closed doors she can truly express her feelings. She knows she cannot express these feelings in front of her family and friends, for she must keep composure in front of them to keep the stature of a woman in that time