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The Story of An Hour Kate Chopin

Louise Mallard learns that her husband Brently was killed in a train accident. She is secretly happy about this news as it means she will now be free from her marriage. She enjoys contemplating her newfound independence alone in her bedroom. However, her husband Brently arrives home alive, and the shock of losing her freedom again causes Louise to have a fatal heart attack. The story uses irony to show how Louise's brief period of imagined liberation ends tragically when she discovers her husband is still alive.

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478 views3 pages

The Story of An Hour Kate Chopin

Louise Mallard learns that her husband Brently was killed in a train accident. She is secretly happy about this news as it means she will now be free from her marriage. She enjoys contemplating her newfound independence alone in her bedroom. However, her husband Brently arrives home alive, and the shock of losing her freedom again causes Louise to have a fatal heart attack. The story uses irony to show how Louise's brief period of imagined liberation ends tragically when she discovers her husband is still alive.

Uploaded by

JenivanValezaAvila
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Story of an Hour

Kate Chopin
1. Characters of the story
Louise Mallard - A woman whose husband is reportedly killed in a train
accident. When Louise hears the news, she is secretly happy because she is
now free. She is filled with a new lust for life, and although she usually loved her
husband, she cherishes her newfound independence even more. She has a
heart attack when her husband, alive after all, comes home.
Brently Mallard - Louise’s husband, supposedly killed in a train accident.
Although Louise remembers Brently as a kind and loving man, merely being
married to him also made him an oppressive factor in her life. Brently arrives
home unaware that there had been a train accident.
Josephine - Louise’s sister. Josephine informs Louise about Brently’s death.

Richards - Brently’s friend. Richards learns about the train accident and
Brently’s death at the newspaper office, and he is there when Josephine tells the
news to Louise.

2. The main themes in “The Story of an Hour” are freedom, time, and identity.

Freedom: Louise is overjoyed by the realization that Brently’s death will


render her free to live as she chooses, highlighting the repressive nature
of Victorian marriages.

Time: Time is a matter of perception, and Louise’s hour of imagined


freedom comes at the cost of her life.

Identity: Louise has long been denied a sense of selfhood due to her role
as a wife. Brently’s death offers her the chance to explore and claim her
own identity.

3. Setting

The events take place in Louise Mallard’s house. After hearing the news of her
husband’s death, Louise Mallard retreats into her room, which becomes a
significant point of the physical setting. Louise retreating to her room suggests
she rejects Josephine and Richard’s attempts to comfort her and chooses
instead to analyze her husband’s death on her own. This could be considered
Louise’s first step towards independence.
4. Structure of the Story
 Chronological Order

 Technique/s used in the story - the most powerful technique is the use
of irony. Notice how this irony can be found in the very first and last lines
of the story:
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to
break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease - of joy that kills.

However, we as readers know the internal thoughts of Mrs. Mallard and how, once she
accepted her husband's death, the overwhelming thought that dominated her mind was
her freedom now that she was alone:

There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for
herself. 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.

Thus the delight of this thought and her freedom is cut short dramatically and
suddenly by the re-appearance of her supposedly dead husband which results in Mrs.
Mallard's death. Of course, we know it was not of "joy that kills," it was the thought of
being placed suddenly back into that relationship again that caused her death after
being able to contemplate freedom.

5. The kind of relationship that Mr and Mrs Mallards have is ordinary. There is some
love but no signs of romance in their marital relationship.
The husband and wife are not indispensable for each other but have only learnt
to depend upon each other with time

6. The phrase "Free! Body and soul free!" indicates that Louise Mallard is not
grieving her husband's presumed death. ... Rather than living according to her
husband's whims, she is physically, mentally, and spiritually free
to do as she pleases.

7. She is feeling victorious because she would not have to act like the wife of a man
she only half loved. She was no more bound by the restraints every wife is. Being
a widow was not her pain; instead she was pleased that she would be free to live
her life like she wants.
8. At the end of the story, it says that "when the doctors came, they said
she died of heart disease-- of a joy that kills." They assume that her weak heart
could not handle the happiness she felt when her husband walked through the
door alive. They do not know- or refuse to acknowledge- the actual cause for her
death. I expect the story will end up with happy Mrs.Millard because at last she
will be free from the romanceless marriage they have.
9. The title of the short story refers to the time elapsed between the moments at
which the protagonist, Louise Mallard, hears that her husband, Brently Mallard, is
dead, then discovers that he is alive after all.
10. The impact of the story to me is
that women should be heard in time of their quietness. Most women, specially
the married ones, often have silent battles within. They cannot express their
emotions to everyone. Once they’ll be given a chance to speak, they feel free.
They are overjoyed and feel appreciated.

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