Mr. Richards was in the newspaper office when he heard the news of the railroad disaster. Josephine started to break the news gently to her sister Mrs. Mallard. After Mrs. Mallard heard the news of her husband’s death; she didn’t react the way you think that she would. Instead of her having that paralyzed inability to accept his death she just wept. The grief she was feeling overcame her and she went to her room to be alone.
The Story of an Hour As the title puts it, “The Story of an Hour” is a story that happens in one hour. This story mostly revolves around one woman, Louise Mallard. The story begins on a very sad note especially in the eyes of a reader. Mrs. Mallard is said to have a “heart trouble” (Chopin 1), so her sister Josephine felt that great care had to be taken when delivering the sad news of her husband Brently Mallard’s death. Upon the delivery of the news, she starts sobbing and grieving then goes to her room to be by herself.
In the story, “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs. Mallard learns of her husband’s death from her sister Josephine. She is so distraught with the news, that she retreats to her bedroom to be alone. While in her room, she goes through several emotions: first, she is exhausted and allows herself to relax, then, she gets depressed by the news of her husband’s death, and finally, she is relieved
Richards tried to shield Mrs. Mallard from seeing her husband except it was too late. Once Mrs. Mallard laid eyes on whom she believed to be her late husband she collapsed and died. (Chopin 1894) When the doctor had seen Mrs. Mallard he said “she died of heart disease-of joy that kills." (139) it was assumed that she was so happy her husband was alive and she died from the shock. When in fact were the opposite it was her husband being alive and the thought of giving up her new found freedom and becoming repressed again?
The protagonist of “The Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard dies of a heart attack when she saw her husband alive just an hour later hearing of his death in the railroad disaster. The main character of “The Yellow Wallpaper” Jane is a woman who was diagnosed by her husband and physician John as having “a temporary nervous depression” (Gilman 55). He rented a big colonial mansion with gorgeous garden to help to treat her sickness by doing nothing. It was forbidden for his wife to write, to spend a lot of time with her baby, to have visitors and traveled somewhere. He controlled each Jane’s step by himself or with his sister supervision.
The feeling, however, shifts because she begins to be happy about her husband’s death. She thinks she will be able to enjoy the freedom that she had lost in the marriage. Her hope is then ruined by the subsequent news of Mr. Mallard’s survival. The story describes the change of Mrs. Mallard’s reaction and emotion within a single hour. In the short fiction, Chopin explores her belief that marriage and freedom cannot exist together by using two powerful ironies: situational irony and dramatic irony.
Mallard” is told by her sister, that her husband has been killed in a train accident. Initially, she is filled with sorrow and disbelief. However, after her tears dry and the days events begin to settle, Mallard begins to imagine what her life will be like without her husband. A calming relief begins to fill her thoughts. She would no longer have to live for him nor anyone else, only herself.
In the beginning of the story we learn Mrs. Mallard’s husband, Brently Mallard, was killed in a train accident. Brently’s friend Richards rushed over to her house to break the news gently to Mrs. Mallard because she suffered from a fragile heart. Throughout her story, Chopin gave us the first names of the characters except for Mrs. Mallard. We didn’t learn her first name until after she received the news of her husband’s death. This signified that Mrs. Mallard was known only as Brently’s wife and didn’t have a true identity of her own until she was freed from her marriage.
The Story of an Hour is about a woman with a fragile heart, who is carefully informed of her husband Brently Mallard's death due to a railroad accident. As one reads the story, it is simple to believe that Mrs. Mallard weeps at the news of her husband’s death, for now she is a young widow who may have been deeply in love. However, there is much more depth and there are layers to the story that spark the question of how well one can truly know what another feels if one only knows a short part of the story. Mrs. Mallard maintains a façade of loving her husband, which is also perpetuated by the world view that a married couple loves each other. She is oppressed by her husband, whose “face…had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead”.
“The Story of an Hour” The beginning of Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” presents a woman who is about to be told that her husband has been killed in a railroad disaster. Louise Mallard suffers from a heart condition so her sister and friends must break the news to her as delicately as possible. Immediately after hearing the shocking news, she reacts just as one would imagine by weeping as she ran off to her room alone. However, the reaction quickly shifts as with her husband’s passing she is overcome with joy as she realizes that she no longer has to live for anyone but herself. The open window that Louise gazes from is a key symbol which represents the freedom and opportunity that is now possible now that her husband has died.