Theme Of Marriage In The Story Of An Hour

Marriage a term that recognizes the unification of a man and a woman. A word that according to our society converts a relationship into something more formal or legal. Several people have a different perception and experience of what marriage is like. Kate Chopin the author of, the short story, “The Story of an Hour”, presents an unnoticed but common view of marriage. In “The Story of an Hour” we can perceive a silenced oppressive marriage and the irony of life and death The main character, Mrs. Mallard, has a risky heart condition, so the breakdown of the news of her husband’s death was difficult to present to her. She first experienced slight sadness but during her grief, she realizes that she is now free. Mrs. Mallard later discovers that …show more content…
Mallard realizes she is free. She tried to suppress this feeling, but it overwhelmed her and the word “Free, free, free!” (paragraph 10) finally came out of her mouth and she felt alive. “Her pulse beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body” (paragraph 10). Mrs. Mallard was now aware that she could live for herself. She sees the opportunity to be her own person, and to spend the rest of her life for living for herself. She was in an oppressive marriage and she tasted freedom for just an instant and an enormous joy filled her body and her soul. In paragraph 11 the author mentions that “she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome” meaning that she was excited for this new journey that had begun in her life. She dreaded those years living with her husband a man who prohibited her from her liberty. Some people see marriage as a robbing them from their independence, but back in that era it was seen wrong for a woman to desire to have independence and it was not acknowledged. Women’s lacked this forbidden pleasure of …show more content…
Mallard and her sister walked down the stairs. As they approached the bottom someone, her husband, was opening the door. To their surprise, she saw Brently walking through the front door. A mixture of emotions filled Mrs. Mallard’s heart which was too weak to support this news. This devastating and great news caused her death. Seeing her supposedly dead husband killed her, but the fact that he was alive was not what killed her. It was the deception of losing her freedom what caused her death. She had been extremely happy knowing that she was free to do as she pleased. She had a “feverish triumph in her eyes” and saw herself as a “goddess of victory” (paragraph18), because in a short time, she had gained her freedom, her individuality, and her independence which made her looked forward to her new life. She had prayed for her life to be long and it was only yesterday that her life might be long (paragraph 17). Seeing her husband alive meant that she would go back to her role of being a wife, which in that era meant that a woman was worth nothing. She would never be free now. She couldn’t bear going back to that unbearable life she was living because she had already tasted her