Is marriage a prison? According to Kate Chopin, the answer is – yes; marriage is a prison in which freedom does not exist. In 1894, Kate Chopin wrote and published “Story of an Hour.” The story takes place in the late nineteenth century in an American home, where Mrs. Mallard, the protagonist, heard about the news of her husband’s death from her sister. In the beginning, Mrs. Mallards felt sad about her husband’s death. The feeling, however, shifts because she begins to be happy about her husband’s death.
Interpretive Analysis of Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin shows the author’s completely negative view of marriage as nothing more than a constraint and a misery. Chopin goes on to say that a woman is better off dead than married when the character, Louise Mallard, dies of heart disease upon seeing her husband is not dead at all. Heart disease, being the disease of marriage. Louise Mallard not only accepted Brently Mallard’s death, but burst into sudden, almost unexplainable weeping. This was possibly due to the fact that she was so overjoyed with the fact that she was her own person again, she could not control her emotions.
Mallard and her husband to me seem like she loved him but was not in love with him. The story talks about certain situations that she must live thought like the death of her husband. The reader would think that by hearing the news that Mr. Mallard had been killed, Mrs. Mallard would be upset and hurt, instead she felt liberated and free to live her live as she please. It seems that once she found out that her husband was dead that now she could finally live for herself establish her own identity. Mrs. Mallard cried but it was not tears of sorrow, it was tears of joy.
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.
Story of an Hour “The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin, is about a character, Louise Mallard, who was in a loveless marriage, and her life was dull. Louise yearned for a better life, and she came to realize that because of her husband's death; she had her independence and could spend her life without the invisible chains of a trapped marriage. The author, Kate Chopin uses imagery and describes in detail of the characters' recognition of her freedom and possibilities of a new life for herself. At first, Louise Mallard felt a slight pain of grief from her husband's death, but she saw his death as a new lease on life. Chopin describes Louise as not perceiving her husband's death as society expected her to, "She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance" (Chopin, 1894).
She mourned of her husband’s passing but as she went up the flight of stairs into her room, Mrs. Mallard came to realize of her newfound freedom. She soon relished her liberation from her marriage to her husband Brently. Such freedom was short-lived, and as she her eyes caught sight of her husband’s entrance into the house, her heart gave way and she died. The two women do indeed share some similarities, but also at the same time show various differences that make their respective situations unique. Among the similarities between Calixta and Mrs. Mallard are the conditions of their marriages around the time of the stories: Calixta to Bobinot and Mrs. Mallard with Brently Mallard.
Analysis of "The Story Of An Hour" by Kate Chopin I wrote my paper on “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin. On the following pages, you will read about a character by the name of Louise. She was married at a time when marriage was not about mutual love. When she hears of her husbands’ death, she feels sorrow but is overcome with feelings of joy. Louise has found a freedom that she had forgotten she had.
She would no longer have to live for him nor anyone else, only herself. As the day approaches night, a dear friend of her husband’s walks through the door and behind him her dead husband. She collapses right there at the bottom of the stairwell. The doctors said she had died of “heart disease-a joy that kills” (par 23). Although it may seem as the thought of her husband dying brought her joy, it was actually the desire to live for herself, which brought her
She tries to believe that she “is happy now” because her marriage has guaranteed her a life of luxury, but she cannot escape the memory of her former lover, even during the ceremony, when she fantasizes she is being joined with the now-dead man she once promised to marry as well. The poet elects to make the speaker the young woman herself, instead of retelling her tale in the third person because of the emotional intensity conveyed by having the bride reveal her own thoughts. She actively describes her pain, while an observer would simply comment that she is lamenting. We are given more insight as to her internal struggle between wanting to be happy with her new husband, and wishing she was instead
“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.