Freedom In Kate Chopin's Story Of An Hour

The other characters in the story saw Mrs. Mallard’s death as she how she couldn’t control the joy she had when she saw that her husband was still alive. For Mrs. Mallard it was better to live an hour of happiness and freedom than to live in the shadow of her husband. Mrs. Mallard joy and freedom had now been taken away from her in a matter of an hour. People will say Mrs. Mallard died happy because she got the freedom she always wanted right before she passed away. Many women in that era would have loved to experience the joy and freedom that came from not being in the shadow of their husbands, but being equal with them.

“The Story of an Hour”, created by Kate Chopin, is a short story that shows the emotions of a new-found widow in a time where women’s rights aren’t as they are today. The story starts off by introducing Mrs. Mallard as only a woman with great heart trouble who needs to be taken care of as she is presented with the news of her, supposedly, dead husband. She later finds that the death of her husband transformed from heartache to freedom and becomes spontaneously overjoyed. According to the way it was written, two themes could be drawn from this short story. One main theme that could be drawn from the story was the “Role of women during marriage”.

Mallard’s death is a combination of her heart condition and becoming suddenly over-happy at the sight of her husband. This is ironic because the real reason for Mrs. Mallard’s death is the opposite. It is a combination of her weak heart and extreme sudden sadness and shock. Everyone thinks she was still overcome with sadness from his death when really she was finally happy that she could look forward to a long, independent life, living just for herself. Then when she discovered that her husband was really alive they thought she was so overcome with joy that she died when really she became extremely sad again because she was back where she had been before the incident.

It is clear to the readers that she loved her husband, but since her husband has passed, she longed for the freedom she never had before. After a while, Mrs. Mallard began to feel joyful because of her husband’s death. In this essay I will be analyzing this text through feminist lens. “The Story of an Hour” relates to gender roles, the lack of freedom and identity of women in the 1800s male-dominated society, and how the time period in which this story was written gives insight on why Mrs. Mallard feels the way she did when she finds out her husband has

Most people can live happily in isolation without the company of another’s presence and some can not. In three short stories by Kate Chopin, she explains how many people often make decisions out of pleasure, which eventually leads to dissatisfaction. With this in mind, the story Regret discusses how a woman rejected a proposal to live a life she later regretted. In addition to, Desiree’s Baby depicts how a young man decided to send his wife and child elsewhere because of their race. Including, The Story of An Hour which describes how a woman put herself through misery while trying to cope with her husband’s death.

Mallard, Richards, Josephine, and Mr. Mallard. The story continues by allowing the readers to see that Mrs. Mallard’s inconsistent emotions ascend from her actions and reactions to Brently Mallard’s “death.” As the story comes to a conclusion, the readers are finally able to comprehend that the immediate development of strain on Mrs. Mallard’s heart, causes her to lose her newly found freedom. She loses her newly found freedom due to her heart condition which leads to heart failure. This heart failure ultimately ends up resulting in Mrs. Mallard’s death. The readers first believe that Mrs. Mallard seeing her husband at the door is the only cause of her death, but as the story continues to develop, the readers find out that Mrs. Mallard’s death can also be blamed on Josephine and Richards.

After letting go of her pain and anger, she discovers the beauty and happiness of the book. As she let this all go, her husband filled the book with her full happy life. In the story, the woman was angry. She hated the book, but once she realized all the negative feedback she was receiving, she felt sad and miserable. She then changed for good and let go of her bad emotions to set up a good life for herself.

The Contrast of The Story of an Hour While Mrs. Mallard is just starting a new life, so to say, for herself, her life she has known comes to an end. She is just able to become “free, free, free!” (57) when she loses her life. Kate Chopin uses contrast with the news Richard’s gave, the way Mrs. Mallard felt in the room and the doctor’s news to show how women perceived marriage in the 19th century in her story The Story of an Hour. When Richard’s heard the news of her husband’s death, he assumed Mrs. Mallard would be devastated. While everyone knew Mrs. Mallard was “afflicted with heart trouble” (57), him and her sister, Josephine, wanted to give her the news with “great care” (57).

Mrs. Sommers was the only woman who actually got to spend time thinking of herself and spending money on whatever she wanted. In the first story “The Story of an Hour”, when Mrs. Mallard heard news of her husband’s death she cried which showed that she was devastated by the tragedy. The issue of her husband dying no longer became an issue when she changed her perspective. She began to feel empowered by the thought of her husband’s death stating “There would be no one to live for

She died giving birth to the child of her husband, but she was in love with Heathcliff until the end. (10) “I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and i am too idle to destroy for nothing.” (Ch. 33, pg. 295) In both of these events, different types of love were displayed. Both women showed their love in different ways.