Story Of An Hour Literary Analysis

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The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin is about Mrs. Mallard a woman with a heart condition finding out her husband was killed in a railroad accident. Subsequently, she gains freedom through her husband’s death, and ponders how her life will be so much better without him there to oppress her. This is short lived because her husband actually didn’t die in the accident and comes home. When Mrs. Mallard sees him she dies from what the doctors say a joy that kills. This however, is untrue. Mrs. Mallard dies from the extreme disappointment that came with the realization that a life without freedom from her husband was no life at all. In the beginning of the story we can see that Mrs. Mallard has been holding something back, seemingly for a long time. The narrator describes her as "young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke…show more content…
Mallard is unhappy with her husband and doesn’t truly love him. “Back in the 1800’s marriages were often arranged so there was less of a chance of marrying a person for love.(Gender roles in Kate Chopin’s Story of an Hour 1)” In their marriage, Mr. Mallard possibly unknowingly imposes his will upon her making her feel like she wasn’t in control. “Mrs. Mallard’s affliction can attribute to her ambivalence towards marriage and her distaste at her lack of freedom. (Gender Roles in Kate Chopin’s Story of an Hour 1)” We are told in the story “And yet she had loved him – sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!(15)” This tells us that the main thing she is living for now in her husband’s passing is herself. She can now be self-assertive and ring her opinions to the table because no man is there to oppress her and tell her how she is to think and act. She thinks she can now be even more without him and even goes as far to say that "life might be long"

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