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Story Of An Hour Critical Analysis

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The Taste of Freedom in Kate Chopin’s “A Story of an Hour”

Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of an Hour” is recognized as a masterpiece of short fiction literature and a vivid tale of the person’s complicated self-discovery. Mrs. Mallard, the main character of the story, learns about the death of her husband. However, her initial feelings of confusion are replaced by a strange feeling that she embraces later. Slowly, like the awakening nature, a sense of freedom and happiness is filling up her body and soul in anticipation of a life free from someone else’s desires. An hour later, her husband returns home and in this moment, Mrs. Mallard dies suddenly "from joy that kills”. The last words are equivocal – what kill her: the shock of the site of her husband, her love, alive or she cannot bare the shattering of her dreams of freedom. The text juxtaposes metaphors, comparisons and epithets to support the author 's main idea. The overall perception of the moment of learning someone close is gone is to go through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The author put the main character through three of them. However, why is Mrs. Mallard so different? This is may be due to the historical period – the women are repressed and oppressed, and the death of her husband is some kind of liberation and long wanted freedom. The outlook of the writer merges the desire to adopt and poeticize the desire of women of spiritual independence with the

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