Brief Moment of Freedom

637 Words3 Pages
A Brief Moment of Freedom Kyla Poling ENG 125 Professor Heather AltfeldFisher August 13, 2011 A Brief Moment of Freedom In The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin, we are introduced to Mrs. Mallard. We experience with her, death, joy and then death again as she discovers freedom. Mrs. Mallard is informed of her husband’s death in a railroad disaster. She struggles with the feelings she experiences of joy after a short period of grief. Mrs. Mallard then witnesses her husband walking through the front door of their home. Mrs. Mallard having tasted a brief moment of freedom chooses death over having that freedom taken away again. The underlying theme of this story is finding peace and experiencing freedom. Mrs. Mallard upon hearing of the death of her husband experiences many emotions in a very short period of time. After the initial period of grief, we find that conflict sets in. She struggles with the feelings that start to arise within her that are far from the feeling of grief. There are many uses of symbolism that reinforce the theme of this story. “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. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. 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.” (as cited in Clugston 2010 section 2.2, para. 5). Spring represents birth and new beginnings. She is starting to recognize this new feeling approaching. “The delicious breath of rain was in the air”, rain representing a found blessing in the death of her husband. She then recognizes the blue skies, having found a
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