The Story Of An Hour

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ENGL220 Assignment 1 MINJI KIM Setting in the late nineteenth century, Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour illustrates a woman’s emotional changes after she heard of her husband’s death. Although it is written long before and it is just a short portrayal of an emotional repression of a woman of that time, The Story of an Hour still is a thought-provoking story even for the contemporary readers. Louise, who has heart problem, is carefully told that her husband, Brently, is killed in a railroad accident. She goes upstairs to her room sobbing. Looking outside the open window, she feels the spring air, and suddenly feels the unexpected joy. She soon recognises what brings her this joy is the newfound freedom. She spreads her arms out to the world, and repeats whispering, “free, free, free!” When her sister Josephine comes up to see if she is all right, she tells her to leave her alone as she is fine. She draws the picture of the new independent life of her own. Then she walks out of her room and goes downstairs with her sister. At last, it reveals that Brently is never dead, because he has not been involved in the train disaster. Seeing her husband, Louise dies of the “joy that kills.” The theme of the story is the forbidden freedom of a married woman. Louise finds the “monstrous joy” after her husband’s death, because she thinks she could finally escape the oppression and be free on her own. Even though she feels sad about the fact that she has lost her husband, she cannot conceal her feeling thrills about her new life as an independent woman. Her death at the end of the story is really unexpected, and Chopin does not give any detailed description of the reason why she is dead so suddenly. However, it may be because her freedom has been taken away from her again. In ‘Deictic Elements in Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour – A Cognitive
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