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Running head: Fiction Anaylisis “Story of an Hour” 1

Fiction Anaylisis “Story of an Hour” 5

When diving deep into the character Louise Mallard in the short story “A Story for an Hour” written by Kate Chopin. The story is told through the perception of Louise Mallard after hearing the tragic news of her husband’s death, Louise began to show a rather unusual reaction to Mr. Mallard death. Instead of grieving, she instead shows an overwhelming sense of joy and freedom. Chopin paints Mrs. Mallard as a content women who feels trapped within her marriage to Brently Mallard. Throughout the story the narrator makes sure to give hints and clues about how trapped Louise felt about her marriage and the audience begins to sympathize and understand that Brently’s death was not a devastating news, but more of a liberation of her life. Over joyed by the news, she can finally assert herself. But ironically Louise is the one who untimely dies from extreme happiness.

Throughout the story, the audience aren’t giving to much information about the Mr. and Mrs. Mallard marriage, but learns that she was repressed throughout the marriage and she feels trapped. The audience is sort of force to use their imagination on the marriage. After Louise’s sister Josephine gives the news of her husband’s death. She of course begins to weep into her arms of Josephine. “When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her. There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul she could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air” (Chopin). From this line the Louise uses the open window as a form of symbolism in which she has the ability to free herself from the confined marriage and is able to see the world again. Chopin gives a great analogy of Louise being a prisoner to her own home and marriage. “There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window” (Chopin). Chopin uses the blue sky as an underlying symbol for freedom.

Louise begins to have that thought that she can finally be able to live for herself now. “She then begins to utter the words "Free! Body and soul free! She kept whispering” (Chopin). The narrator emphasizes that Louise realizes now that in the next upcoming years she will finally be able to make decisions and “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” (Chopin). Chopin done a great job illustrating the suffering within Louise’s marriage to Brently. Since this short story was written 1894, marriage had a more tradition “till death do us part” aspect to it with divorce not being as prevalent and common thing as of today. During the late eighth and early nineteen century women it was didn’t have as much freedom and power within the household and society. It is safe to say that society had a more tolerance of women being subject to spousal abuse, domestic violence, little to no property ownership, and limited rights. Even though the narrator fail to give any specific details of the Louise marriage, it is safe to say that she may have been subjected to a sort of abuse, in which Chopin leaves to the imagination of the audience. “And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being”! (Chopin). The narrator expresses that she was young and beautiful, which Louise feels that she is wasting her youth and beauty being in a marriage that she feels like a prisoner being trapped behind four walls.

After locking herself in the confines of her room in which she can privately express the way she truly. Josephine assumes that her sister Louise is sobbing and potentially going to harm herself and begins to talk to her through the keyhole: "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door” (Chopin). But on the contrary Louise is expressing the opposite, in fact she is celebrating life that she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window. Josephine continues to try to convince Louise to open the door, but Louise who is annoyed replies: “Go away. I am not making myself ill" (Chopin). Louise finally opened the door and collapsed at her sister’s waist in which they both began to walk down the stairs. Louise then collapsed on the floor, then suddenly the front door key latched began to open with Brently Mallard walking in to the house unharmed and unaware that there was a train accident. Later, the doctor pronounced Louise dead she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.

Throughout the story it seems as if Chopin made the character Louise Mallard is somewhat of a metaphor for women in the 18th and 19th century who may have been feeling trapped within the confines of their marriage. Chopin done a great job illustrating Louise suffering marriage to Brently, that ironically when she was finally free that her emotions ultimately was the thing that killed her. I believe the Chopin’s underlying message of the story is to paint Louise as every woman who ever felt that they were trapped by society views of women being oppressed by men. Even though Louise was the only one who truly died instead of Brently Mallard, she finally is able to escape the grips of her marriage.

Reference:

Chopin, K (1894). The Story of an Hour. In X.J Kennedy and D Gioia (Eds.) The Literature Collection: An E-Text [VitalSource digital version] (p.149 ). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Essays, UK. (November 2013). Mrs Mallard Character Analysis. Retrieved from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-literature/character-analysis-of-mrs-mallard-english-literature-essay.php?vref=1