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Web“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is a short story from the late nineteenth century focusing on a young woman as she reacts to a report that says her husband, on the top WebKate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour is a surprising, emotional story portraying a woman’s attempt to deal with the death of her husband. Mrs. Mrs. Mallard, a widow in the Web21 rows · Jul 8, · The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin is the example of the human understanding of several hidden Web22 rows · Jul 31, · The Story of an Hour Summary. Kate Chopin narrated the story of a woman Mrs. Mallard who had WebAug 25, · In this essay, we are going to make a critical analysis of a short story by a famous American writer Kate Chopin ( – ) “The Story of an Hour”. K. Chopin ... read more
Mallard finds that her husband is not dead, her already-weakened heart gives out and she is declared dead of heart disease. A closer analysis of Mrs. Mallard seems sudden but the irony brought on by that exact death is everywhere. In Mrs. For example, if the reader had been equally as uninformed as Mrs. Mallard had died of joy. Her husband was alive; is that not reason to be excited? However, given that the reader understands the sense of freedom Mrs. Mallard received after her blinding grief subsided, it becomes clear that she died of disappointment rather than joy. Mallard; not only did his being alive take her freedom from her, it took her actual, true, cell-dividing life. That fact draws a comparison between freedom and life: is life worth it if one has tasted freedom?
Another strike of irony lies in the fact that Mrs. Grief is a strong power and Mrs. Mallard might die from it. Ironically enough, she is not wrong. While the doctors ruled Mrs. The many threads and layers of emotion surrounding Mrs. Even so, to the modern reader death may seem like a very drastic and dramatic response to learning that freedom was taken. However, that exact response lines up perfectly with Mrs. She is brash and quick to go through changes in moods throughout the story. Mallard does not go through the traditional stages of grief, of which denial is a large part.
The speed in which Mrs. Taking that understanding further, it becomes easy to believe that Mrs. Mallard thinks on the positive side of things; this is evident in her decision to focus on the blue parts of the sky rather than the cloudy ones. Mallard could have focused on the more prevalent cloudy areas of the sky just as she could have focused on the negative parts of her current situation After lining up the subconscious unhappiness Mrs. Mallard had a much stronger reaction to the joy of freedom than the grief of having lost her husband, her death is logical.
The exact reason for her confinement Mr. Mallard reappeared, making it impossible to get the freedom she had fallen so quickly in love with. While her death is sudden and shocking upon first read, a second, closer read reveals that the story could not have possibly ended another way. Chopin, Kate. Ontario: Broadview Press , Walt Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe, Research Paper Example. Perspectives on Argument, Essay Example. Need a professionally written Custom Essay? Right now, you can get a professionally written essay in any discipline with a. We're now sending you a link to download your e-book, please check your e-mail.
He was not involved in the accident and did not understand why Josephine was crying. At the shock of seeing her husband again, Mrs. Mallard collapses. The doctors declare that she died because of the problems with her heart. Health issues of the central character play a significant role in the story. The author managed to bring the suspense out in the way he described telling the bad news to a person with a heart problem. However, Mrs. Mallard reacts better than anticipated. The focus of the story is mostly about femininity and the institution of marriage. The analysis of The Story of an Hour has to speculate on it to reveal the core message. The author was able to illustrate that men entirely dominated the institution of marriage.
Mallard, for instance, treated his wife the way she wanted only from time to time. For years, Louise has done many things to please her husband without looking after her well-being. So, having received the disturbing news, she is quite happy. It seemed that she had never cared for her husband at all. Or did she? She cannot escape the loneliness and grief that came with the loss. But the possibility of happiness prevails. Louise knew that marriage had made her a subject for him against her will. The only sorrow that existed is for the loss of his life but not for living without him. She felt deep inside that she had been freed from chains of living for another person.
She is devastated about his fate but regains the strength quickly. Louise was well aware of the fact that she could not bring her husband back. Mallard sees beyond the painful moment, anticipating freedom for the rest of her life. The room and environment around Mrs. Mallard symbolize her desire for freedom. Through the window, for example, Mrs. Mallard could see the tops of trees. They were all aquiver with the new spring life on the open square before her house. There was a delicious breath of rain in the air. A peddler was weeping his wares in the street below. There were spots of blue sky showing up here and there through the clouds in the west facing her window which had met and piled up one above the other Woodlief 1.
An open window could be interpreted as a metaphor. It reflects new possibilities and resources that Mrs. Mallard now had in her sights without anybody stopping her. She referred to it as the late spring of life. The story reveals how women were secretly marginalized. At the time, society expected them to pursue wealth and safety, which came with a husband. Liberty should be neither their worry nor their goal. When Louise feels freedom after Mr. But then, her sister arrives. Mallard is shocked by the sight of her husband alive within a short period. All of her newfound liberty and dreams came crashing down at that moment.
This shattering experience even goes to the extreme of destroying her life. Whereas she was to be happy to see her husband alive, Louise dies from a heart attack. Therefore, the author explored the character of Mrs. Mallard throughout this story. Louise is a woman with a great desire for independence, which a man has deprived her of through marriage. Mallard represents the absence of her liberty that restores after his death. When Mrs. Mallard sees her husband at the door once again, she collapses and never wakes up. From The Story of an Hour literary analysis, we can draw several important conclusions.
The lack of liberty and independence may have caused her heart problems in the first place. And they costed her life in the end. Her husband, Mr. However, as it became apparent from the story, he never valued her. When she died, he had finally faced the consequences of always taking her existence for granted. Therefore, the oppressor faced even a more influential tragedy than the oppressed. The dramatic irony of Mr. So, in the end, it was Mr. Through The Story of an Hour, the author presents us with the inner feelings and thoughts of a woman using various symbols.
It also shows the delicate and complicated inner world of a woman. The Story of an Hour criticizes the typical experience of marriage in the s. For women, such marriage was repressive and meant their loss of personal freedoms. Therefore, the story criticizes the society of that time dominated by men.
General Education. Imagine a world where women are fighting for unprecedented rights, the economic climate is unpredictable, and new developments in technology are made every year. While this world might sound like the present day, it also describes America in the s. We recommend you read it again before diving into our analyses in the next section! From here, the story shifts in tone. After praying that her life is long-lived, Louise agrees to come out. However, as she comes downstairs, the front door opens to reveal her husband, who had not been killed by the accident at all. Kate Chopin, the author of "The Story of an Hour," has become one of the most important American writers of the 19th century.
Born in to wealthy Catholic parents in St. In , Chopin lost her father, Thomas, when he passed away in a tragic and unexpected railroad accident. Chopin was well-educated throughout her childhood , reading voraciously and becoming fluent in French. Chopin was also very aware of the divide between the powerful and the oppressed in society at the time. She grew up during the U. Civil War, so she had first-hand knowledge of violence and slavery in the United States. Chopin was also exposed to non-traditional roles for women through her familial situation. Her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother chose to remain widows rather than remarry after their husbands died.
As Chopin grew older, she became known for her beauty and congeniality by society in St. She was married at the age of nineteen to Oscar Chopin, who came from a wealthy cotton-growing family. The couple moved to New Orleans, where they would start both a general store and a large family. Chopin would give birth to seven children over the next nine years! While Oscar adored his wife, he was less capable of running a business. Financial trouble forced the family to move around rural Louisiana. In order to support herself and her children, Kate began to write to support her family. Luckily, Chopin found immediate success as a writer. Many of her short stories and novels—including her most famous novel, The Awakening— dealt with life in Louisiana.
She was also known as a fast and prolific writer, and by the end of the s she had written over stories, articles, and essays. Unfortunately, Chopin would pass away from a suspected cerebral hemorrhage in , at the age of American life was undergoing significant change in the 19th century. Technology, culture, and even leisure activities were changing. As the world moved into the new century, American life was also changing rapidly. For instance, t he workplace was changing drastically in the s. Gone were the days where most people were expected to work at a trade or on a farm.
Factory jobs brought on by industrialization made work more efficient, and many of these factory owners gradually implemented more humane treatment of their workers, giving them more leisure time than ever. Though the country was in an economic recession at this time, technological changes like electric lighting and the popularization of radios bettered the daily lives of many people and allowed for the creation of new jobs. Notably, however, work was different for women. Working women as a whole were looked down upon by society, no matter why they found themselves in need of a job. Women who worked while they were married or pregnant were judged even more harshly. In the s, working was only for lower class women who could not afford a life of leisure. Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" a short exploration of marriage and repression in America.
This short story is filled with opposing forces. The themes, characters, and even symbols in the story are often equal, but opposite, of one another. A theme is a message explored in a piece of literature. Keep reading for a discussion of the importance of each theme! Repression can happen internally and externally. For example, if a person goes through a traumatic accident, they may consciously or subconsciously choose to repress the memory of the accident itself. Likewise, if a person has wants or needs that society finds unacceptable, society can work to repress that individual. Women in the 19th century were often victims of repression. Given this, it becomes apparent that Louise Mallard is the victim of social repression.
In their marriage, Louise is repressed. Readers see this in the fact that Brently is moving around in the outside world, while Louise is confined to her home. Brently uses railroad transportation on his own, walks into his house of his own accord, and has individual possessions in the form of his briefcase and umbrella. Brently is even free from the knowledge of the train wreck upon his return home. Louise, on the other hand, is stuck at home by virtue of her position as a woman and her heart condition. Here, Chopin draws a strong contrast between what it means to be free for men and women.
While freedom is just part of what it means to be a man in America, freedom for women looks markedly different. While husbands were usually free to wander the world on their own, hold jobs, and make important family decisions, wives at least those of the upper class were expected to stay at home and be domestic. Like the story, the marriages Kate witnessed often ended in an early or unexpected death. While this painting by Johann Georg Meyer wasn't specifically of Louise Mallard, "Young Woman Looking Through a Window" is a depiction of what Louise might have looked like as she realized her freedom. By exploring the details of each character, we can better understand their motivations, societal role, and purpose to the story.
From the opening sentence alone, we learn a lot about Louise Mallard. From that statement alone, we know that she is married, has a heart condition, and is likely to react strongly to bad news. We also know that the person who is sharing the bad news views Louise as delicate and sensitive. Throughout the next few paragraphs, we also learn that Louise is a housewife, which indicates that she would be part of the middle-to-upper class in the s. She uses Louise to criticize the oppressive and repressive nature of marriage, especially when Louise rejoices in her newfound freedom. While Richards is a background character in the narrative, he demonstrates a high level of friendship, consideration, and care for Louise.
Brently Mallard would have been riding in a train like this one when the accident supposedly occurred. Brently Mallard is the husband of the main character, Louise. Immediately after Louise hears the news of his death, she remembers him fondly. Though the mention of them is brief, the final sentence of the story is striking. In life as in death, the truth of Louise Mallard is never known. Consequently, the ending of the story is double-sided. If the doctors are to be believed, Louise Mallard was happy to see her husband, and her heart betrayed her. And outwardly, no one has any reason to suspect otherwise. But readers can infer that Louise Mallard died of the grief of a freedom she never had , then found, then lost once more.
In "The Story of an Hour," the appearance of hearts symbolize both repression and hope. Symbols are any object, word, or other element that appear in the story and have additional meanings beyond. Motifs are elements from a story that gain meaning from being repeated throughout the narrative. The line between symbols and motifs is often hazy, but authors use both to help communicate their ideas and themes. she was striving to beat it back Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body. And, although her death is attributed to joy, the return of her both symbolic and literal heart disease kills her in the end. Chopin contrasts these two symbolic images to help readers better understand how marriage and repression have affected Louise. First of all, Louise is confined to the home—both within the story and in general.
For instance, the front door is locked when Mr. Mallard returns home. When Mrs. Mallard is overcome with grief, she goes deeper inside her house and locks herself in her room. In that room, however, Mrs. Mallard takes note of the outdoors by looking out of her window. Everything about the outside is free, beautiful, open, inviting, and pleasant a stark contrast from the sadness inside the house. The house and its differences from outdoors serve as one of many symbols for how Louise feels about her marriage: barred from a world of independence. At first, sorrow appears as Louise mourns the death of her husband. Yet, in just a few paragraphs, she finds joy in the event as she discovers a life of her own.
and she dies when that hope is taken away. Remembering the key plot points, themes, characters, and symbols will help you write any essay or participate in any discussion. You may have found your way to this article because analyzing literature can be tricky to master. But like any skill, you can improve with practice! First, make sure you have the right tools for the job by learning about literary elements.
The Story of an Hour Critical Analysis Essay,Categories
Web22 rows · Jul 31, · The Story of an Hour Summary. Kate Chopin narrated the story of a woman Mrs. Mallard who had WebKate Chopin’s short story “The Story of an Hour” is a powerful exploration of a woman’s emotions after hearing news of her husband’s death. The story centers around Louise Web“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is a short story from the late nineteenth century focusing on a young woman as she reacts to a report that says her husband, on the top WebAug 25, · In this essay, we are going to make a critical analysis of a short story by a famous American writer Kate Chopin ( – ) “The Story of an Hour”. K. Chopin WebKate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour is a surprising, emotional story portraying a woman’s attempt to deal with the death of her husband. Mrs. Mrs. Mallard, a widow in the WebKate Chopin ’s “ The Story of an Hour ” argues that an individual discover their self-identity only after being freed from confinement. The story also argues that freedom is a very ... read more
She has a heart condition that her family is aware of and tries to Shield her from any possible emotional stress. Check out our top-rated graduate blogs here: GRE Online Prep Blog GMAT Online Prep Blog TOEFL Online Prep Blog. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. This essay on "The Story of an Hour" was written and submitted by your fellow student. The story is set in the late s which was a time when most women were oppressed by their husbands.
Mallard goes through many emotions and feelings, reevaluating her life. Essays Find a Tutor. She was very cautious because of Mrs. It seemed that she never felt the love for her husband. On one hand, I feel pity for Mrs. Kate Chopin "The Story of an Hour" Critical Analysis Essay Good Essays. GET WRITING HELP.
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