Oppression In The Story Of An Hour

“The Story of an Hour” is falsely displayed as an incredibly sad loss of a husband to a good house wife named Mrs. Mallard whose first name is not important enough to become known. Unfortunately, there is more than one side to Mrs. Mallard and the relationship she has with her husband, Bentley Mallard. When Mrs. Mallard supposedly lost her husband she was brainstorming the possibilities of life after the death of her abusive and controlling husband just to be disappointed by the return of her so called, late husband. The return of her husband kills her and leads her to the destructive nature of thinking that she could never be happy unless her husband is buried six feet below the ground.
Mrs. Mallard did not have it easy through this emotionally
destructive journey. Though her actions didn’t show how she truly felt, Chopin took the reader through the mind of Mrs. Mallard so that they would be able to see how the character was feeling about her being “free, free, free!” (10) The narrator, being Mrs. Mallard’s train of thought, informed the reader of how she really did not love her husband and that she was free of him (15). It is obvious that the narrator knows more than what the reader could physically see in the first half of the story.
Though Mrs. Mallard held in a “monstrous joy” (11) over losing her husband, it was quickly stripped from her when she learned of her husband’s return from the grave. The overwhelming pain and disappointment of her husband’s return sunk all of the feeling of her freedom to the depths of her mind to the point where she could not be happy again. Being a female, this story reminds women of how little thought and emotion they have in a marriage according to society. Like Mrs. Mallard, women are all trapped under the roofs of their husband’s decisions and rules. Of course, women are unable to be a part of the key ownership of a household because of the fact that they might actually give a damn about something for once in their lives. According to men, women are meant to be silenced under the control of an iron fist. Many people hope for the sake of women everywhere that they are able to follow the rules of society because in the end, there is nothing worth living for unless there isn’t a man standing in the way.
As Mrs. Mallard was grieving about her deceased husband, she locked herself in her room to think over her options. After she shuffles into the room she walks over to the chair and “Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.”(4) The death of her husband seemed to bring her overwhelming emotions which, in the end, caused her physical and mental exhaustion. Not only was Mrs. Mallard emotionally disabled, she was also emotionally overjoyed to believe that her husband’s death would lead to absolute freedom.
Limitations are endless when Mrs.
Mallard is pondering her life without her husband. Mrs. Mallard thought of everything differently after the death of her husband. Her emotions brought her from point A to point B when it came to the loss of her love-hate relationship with her husband. She was undeniably happy after taking her time to think over her life. As she came to a conclusion “She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.”(17) Instead of seeing the glass as half empty, Mrs. Mallard saw the glass as half full. Now that she could live for herself, she wanted nothing more than to have a long and prosperous life without a man telling her how to live. When her husband swore her into the life of a house wife and cook, she did not think that there could be a way out of the hell she was in. Mrs. Mallard tells women that it is alright to put up with the nasty nature of men as long as they know that there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. Of course though, with Mrs. Mallard’s new and care-free attitude came the overly disappointing ending to the short story. Her husband walked into their home and she had the sudden realization that her freedom theory was, in the end, just a theory; that her chance at a wonderful life had vanished when her husband wasn’t really dead. Though she got her wish of living a short life without her husband, it seems as though her physical being gave her what her emotional being wanted. The true upsetting mood to the story is that, in the end, the husband won. The weakness of Mrs. Mallard’s soul was too much to carry the weight of her husband’s ego and controlling
being.
The sheer stupidity of Mrs. Mallard by the end of this short story was astonishing. The author, Katy Chopin, showed that she came to the conclusion that Mrs. Mallard was too powerless to find a way out of her terrible marriage after discovering the truth of her still living husband. This shows the audience that the women have no power in a relationship. If a woman is unhappy, then the only thing left to do is kill the soul of said woman. The soul will permanently be free from the chains of a painful and unhealthy marriage.