Story Of An Hour Analysis Essay

Analysis of Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”
Kate Chopin’s “the story of an hour” presents the story of a wife in 1894, in a time when society norms underestimated women needs. The story mainly explores the reaction of a wife, who suffers of heart trouble, to her husband’s death. The story begins with her sister’s and family’s friend’s struggle to break the news to her; the story then transports the reader through the development of Mrs. Mallard’s different emotions. Mrs. Mallard passes from grief, for her husband’s death, to joy, for her freedom, and to death for her husband’s return. The author presents the problems of a 19th century marriage, and how these develop a change in this wife’s feelings in regards to her husband’s death. The story invites the reader to analyze and judge Mrs. Mallard’s behavior; behavior that was developed by her own meaning of
marriage. However, it will be the reader’s personal view of marriage that would vary his or her responses to the story. This essay will analyze the story of an hour by closely evaluating the different events in the story, the characters, the point of view, and the interrelation of these three. This will allow the reader to be able to maintain his or her initial response or obtain a new perception of the story. Finally, a conclusion with my personal response will conclude the paper.
The events of the story were told chronologically, however, they were not predictable. This allows the reader to concentrate completely on what was going to happen next. The story begins by offering a very important detail that crated not only suspense by also became a conflict in the story. The mention of Mrs. Mallard’s heart trouble joins up the news of her husband death. This creates tension and leads the story forward to one of the most important events in story. Mrs. Mallards decides to deal with grief alone by locking herself in her room. However, when she is alone in front of the open window, her grief is quickly controlled, though sobs still come out intermittently (15). This initiates the development of her character by confronting a different conflict. A conflict of emotions has risen inside of Mrs. Mallard, which she describes as being possessed. She is still a 19th Century wife expected to face a grief, but now she was being possessed by different reality “freedom”. This “possession” became a second antagonist more powerful than grief. After Mrs. Mallard trying to fight this possession, she finally surrounded herself and opened her arms to embrace the freedom that comes with her husband’s death. This solved the internal conflict, and it was reflected physically by her keen and bright eyes and warm blood (16). This was a very surprising and unexpected plot event that catches the reader’s attention, and it creates an increase of interest when reading the story. With this event, Mrs. Mallard concluded the development of her character by the blossoming of her new life ahead of her. The begging of Mrs. Mallard’s sister to open the door is kind of an interruption in the middle of the dream that Mrs. Mallard’s was experiencing. Mrs. Mallard’s sister has kind of the role of the social character representation in the story. She was the social consciousness of Mrs. Mallard. However, Mrs. Mallard’s victory was completed by going back to the public view. Her body reflected triumph all over. It seems nothing was a conflict for her anymore, whether it was grief, social expectations, or whatever could come on the way. It was her moment. Mrs. Mallard’s husband return was the climax of the story. It was the only conflict that she could not prevail over. Her freedom depended completely on the act of her husband’s death rather than on a personal decision. His return was a complete tragedy to Mrs. Mallard. The tragically end and last event of the story was her death. She suffered a heart attack that the reader can assume it was for the shocking event of her husband’s return that suddenly stopped her short lasting joy. Now that the plot of the story has been analyzed, and we are familiarized with all the events; let’s analyze the characters of the story.
All the story’s characters are introduced in the opening paragraph. Mrs. Mallard is the protagonist, and it is the only round character of the story. In the first paragraph, we also learned the two important details already mentioned in the plot analysis. She has heart trouble and her husband is assumed dead. The story describes Mrs. Mallard as a young and attractive woman, who has suffered repression, but who demonstrates calm and strength (15). We can also tell by the inside battle she experienced that Mrs. Mallard will is dominated by the established social norms, however her need of identity is more powerful than her “will” and her sense of freedom takes her over. The story reveals that Mrs. Mallard love her husband, and it is important to note that she did not talk bad about him whatsoever. Mrs. Mallard, as most of the wives in the 19th century, lived under the control of her husband, with little identity or time of her own. Mrs. Mallard describes this as a crime, which reveals the intensity of her feelings. Mrs. Mallard’s transformation occurs most entirely internal; however there were some manifestations in her face, and some whispers, “free, body and soul free” (16). Another important detail is that the story starts identifying Mrs. Mallard as Louise when she develops as an individual. This let the reader see the strength of her new identity. Louise joy is stopped when her husband returns alive and her sense of freedom is lost again, and she dies. The other three characters introduced were Mr. Mallard, Josephine and Richards. They are all flat characters. Josephine, Mrs. Mallard’s sister, and Richards, Mr. Mallard’s friend, played the social role to help the story progress, and Mr. Mallard is described by his wife limited in the story. She describes his hands as kind and tender, and talks about him as not looking save with love upon her (16). Mr. Mallard does not change in the story and never achieves complexity as a character.
The story was told by the point of view of a third person narrator. This narrator was a neutral omniscience, who allowed the characters’ actions and thoughts to speak for themselves. This gives the reader the ability to reach a personal conclusion without the influence of someone else’s point of view.
The Plot, the characters and the point of view are fused together to create a good story. It is the arrangement of incidents what shapes the character. What happens, how and why things happen is what allows the characters to develop and change. It is the point of view what allows the reader to see the character development and the different events. The author needs all three of them to create the effect he or she wants to create on a reader.
Analysis of the events in the story allows the reader to find important details that help on the development of the characters.
The different emotions and the transformation that Mrs. Mallard went through in her room was the main scenario of the story. The climax of the story: her husband returns. This was the only conflict she could not overcome. The analysis of the Characters, especially the protagonist Mrs. Mallard, gets the reader closer to understand her behavior. She was a young, beautiful woman who lost her identity when she got married. However, life was giving her back what she always wanted with the event of her husband’s death. She developed into a new free woman, but her joy stopped with her husband’s return and her death. The narrator point of view allows the reader to reach his personal conclusion. I, personally, see the protagonist as a strong woman who managed to live all those years pleasing her husband and society for the price of her identity and freedom. However, I want to share that my husband’s, male point of view, sees her as a cold hearted woman, who did not love her
husband.

Work Cited
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour” The Bedford introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer 9th Edition ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 15-22 Print