Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of an Hour”, exemplifies the suppression that women had to endure in the late 19th century. In the short story Kate Chopin presents a woman who is in grief over her husband’s death, yet is filled with joy over the freedom it provided her with. Mrs. Mallard believed that as a result of her husband’s death, she had fewer responsibilities and more freedom to do the things she wanted to. Although the story is an example of a woman filled with joy over her husband’s passing, she dies after realizing he is in fact alive.
After learning of her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard experienced emotions she knew to be wrong. Although she knew she should be saddened over her husband’s death, she eagerly embraced the freedom it provided her with. With her newly found freedom, Mrs. Mallard begin doing and experiencing things she never imagined doing while her husband was alive such as when she does nothing except rejoice over the freedom she is enjoying. Mrs. Mallard interpreted patches of blue sky, between dark clouds, as a prelude of good things to come. Instead of being overtaken by grief, she was overcome by joy. This joy comes from the feeling of freedom she was experiencing for the first time in her life.
Mrs. Mallard is enthusiastic over her husband’s death but doesn’t let anyone realize that, when the most unexpected happens, her husband is actually alive and he enters the room shocking everyone. The reappearance of Mr. Mallard gives Mrs. Mallard such a shock that she dies “of joy that kills”. In a sense, joy did kill her because of her husband’s sudden appearance. The doctor believed that Mrs. Mallard died from the shock of a sudden reappearance of her husband, who was believed to be dead. Mrs. Mallard’s feeling of freedom was far too much for her to return to the controlled life that existed with her husband. The sudden tragic death of Mrs. Mallard shocked everyone for they thought she would be overjoyed upon seeing that her husband was not dead. Apparently, there are some things far worse than death for Mrs. Mallard it was seeing that her husband was back.
The Term Paper on Finding freedom from Sexual Repression in the Victorian Era
The issue of human freedom can and maybe seen or perceived in so many different layers. It may be intellectual, social or political. Varied and yet somehow it similarity lies on the same level it attempts to liberate itself from the constraints of the society or the institutions. It is in from this very nature that English novelist John Fowles rooted most of his famous literary novels. His third, ...
When Mrs. Mallard heard of her husband dying in a train accident, she could not express the grief she knew she should be feeling. Although she was only able to express joy over the freedom she had, she died when she realized her husband was alive “of joy that kills”. Kate Chopin challenged romance and the supremacy of men in general, which was dangerous in a society ruled by the male race. Chopin explains, in “The Story of an Hour”, that freedom and life should coexist. Mrs. Mallard lived in the true sense of her remaining life with the will and freedom to live for only one hour until her time ran out.
