October 12, 2012
The Story of an Hour
In the short story The Story of an Hour its author Kate Chopin tells us that was impossible for a woman to have or fight for the real meaning freedom in a conservative country with traditional social environment. “Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.”(Chopin 201) Mrs. Mallard was shocked by her husband’s death and felt physical exhaustions not only because they were still couple even Mr. Mallard was the one who bound her with a boring and totally not free life, but she was also hit by a strong feeling of ecstasy and that showed the importance of freedom in Mrs. Mallard’s mind. “Free! Body and soul free!” (Chopin 201) In this quote Mrs. Mallard shouted“ free” twice to emphasis how hard for a women who live the conservative society where woman should cope their husbands to get real freedom and she even could not hide her emotion of ecstasy when she knew that she could get freedom because her husband’s death. “There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled above the other in the west facing her window.” In this quotation the author used natural views to reflect Mrs. Mallard’s mental activity as the freedom was so close to her and she already saw a piece of it but the outsider world was still untouchable. She could only see things through a window showed that she was not satisfied about what she could get. Just like a bird lived in a cage, the freedom was so closed to Mrs. Mallard but that was hard-won even the bird was seriously harmed because the environment it exist could not accept to give the bird freedom and most of the society thought put the bird in the cage would be the best idea.
Work Cited: Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour”. Elements of English 10, Douglas Hilker and Sue Harper. Nelson Thomson Learning, 2000.
Cited: Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour”. Elements of English 10, Douglas Hilker and Sue Harper. Nelson Thomson Learning, 2000. 201-202.