Leslie Knox Ms. Baldwin English 3/ Period 6 2 March 2013 The Story of an Hour Essay In the story, The Story of an Hour, by Kate Chopin, there is a woman with a heart condition that receives bad news. She deals with thenews in a different way than most people would. At first she js sad, but then she realizes she is happy. At the end of the storythere is a major twist. The woman, Mrs. Mallard, is told by her sister Josephine and her husbands friend Richards, that her husband Brently Mallard has been killed in a railroad accodent at work.
When her father banned her from marrying, her father became her attachment. The intense bond between these two left Emily devastated with her father’s passing away. Grieson attempted to keep her father’s corpse; they “believed that she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will” (124). Under-going such a tragedy led her to an intense state of mental illness.
Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of an Hour” portrays how human’s deal with one of the inevitabilities of life: death. Through the characters, Chopin portrays the different approaches to dealing with grief caused by the death of a loved one. The story revolves around the ailing Mrs. Louise Mallard and the way she deals with the news of the husband’s death. Even though Mrs. Mallard seems like a round character, overall, it seems that the writer portrays Mrs. Mallard as a dynamic character. Through the struggles of this character, the reader experiences the different stages of grieving and the ultimate cost of heartbreak.
The Dual Effect of Granny’s Jiltings Throughout the story “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” the protagonist, Granny, was jilted several times. The jiltings that Granny, or Ellen, experienced through her life had the dual effect of improving while worsening it. Granny feels jilted several times in her life: she was left at the altar; her husband died young, leaving her to shoulder the burden of being head of household; an incident that the story hints at is the death of her daughter Hapsy while she was giving birth; as well as Granny not getting a sign from God on her deathbed. All these incidents compounded to harden her. Yet, they simultaneously lent her the ability to soldier on through a difficult life.
She is a middle aged woman with heart trouble, and bad news was about to come her way of the “possible death of her husband” (Chopin, 1894, para.1). Mrs. Mallard was a lady who was possibly controlled in her life by her husband. “When hearing the news of the death, she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in Josephine’s arms” (Chopin, 1894, para.3). I can feel the attachment that she had with her husband, but wept once also shows maybe some antipathy. Mrs. Mallard made her way to her room and stared out her window to watch her new life take fold.
John, Jane’s husband and doctor, enforces the patriarchal idea on his suffering wife, and unknowingly causes to her go mad. The Yellow Wallpaper portrays the views of women in the 19th century, and some of these views are prevalent today. The story is focused on the narrator, assumed to be Jane, and her mental illness. At first, her struggle is with her husband and doctor, John, but as her mental instability worsens, her struggle becomes more and more with the wallpaper, a reflection of herself. To help her cope, John locks her away in a room upstairs, where the yellow wallpaper is.
Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble” and the last line stating that “...she had died of heart disease” made wonder. Is this supposed to be a hint from Kate Chopin? All of the sadden “The Story of an Hour” begin to look at in a different way. Mr. Mallard knowing of his wife’s heart condition staged his death hoping she would die when she sees him alive after the news of his death surfaces. He wanted his wife dead and the reason for it was that he was unhappy in the marriage and secretly having an affair with Josephine.
From these things, I think that the woman's disease results from a psychological cause. Maybe, I think that the chief cause is her husband because she feels joy when she was heard that he was dead. Chopin also uses setting to contrast the news of her husband's death or her longing for freedom. In the text, "the open window and the open square(1,3)" repeat again and again throughout the story. In addition, "the tops of trees, the new spring life, the delicious breath of rain, the notes of distant song and countless sparrows" don't get along with the woman's present situation.
It wasn’t until the second time I read the story that I realized Mrs. Mallard was relieved when she heard the news of her husband` s death. The actions and words Mrs. Mallard portrayed proved this point. The author leaves the reader to almost make a story of their own by leaving out details and allowing the reader to add their own. To prove this, in the beginning of the short story, the reader gets the impression that this woman is going to be extremely upset that her husband has died in a train accident. Her closest friends and family come to her to easily break the news of her husband` s recent death.
Marea Wiggins Personal Journal on “Story of an Hour” While reading “Story of an Hour”, it bought about so many different emotions, such as sadness, disappointment, guilt, hurt, and the feeling of being free. When Mrs. Mallard found out about her husband’s death from her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richard, Mrs. Mallard couldn’t accept the fact that it was actually her husband who had died. If I was in her position, I really don’t believe that I could get over something so shocking just that easy. The hurt and sorrow would be entirely too much for me to handle. The one moment when Mrs. Mallard was alone in her room really stuck out the most.