story of an hour close reading final

Elijah Brown
Study of Lit
Eng 213

Close Reading on The Story of An Hour

In the short story, “The Story of An Hour” written by Kate Chopin, Mrs. Mallard the main character, finds out that her husband has been killed on a train accident. However, the narrator tells us that Mrs. Mallord has heart trouble. Mrs. Mallard then leaves her sister Josephine and Richard to get privacy in her bedroom. Why it is that Mrs. Mallard began to feel free the more she came to her senses that her husband was no longer alive? She could see the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life (Chopin 1).
The opened window revealed to the readers that the sky was clearing up just like Mrs. Mallard life since her husband passed away. Repetition also played an imperative factor in the story about the window being open for her to see how the weather was clearing up where she could smell the delicious breath of rain being in the air. Mrs. Mallard mentioned free several times throughout the text implying that her marriage was more like a prison and not something that she enjoyed. There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself (Chopin 2). Mrs. Mallard accepted the death of her husband and was at ease with not having to worry about anyone else but herself. Imagery was used in the text as well. For example, Chopin stated that Mrs. Mallard was drinking a very elixir of life through that open window (Chopin 2). Mrs. Mallard wasn’t literally drinking anything through a window however; she tasted the freedom that was coming her way. Mrs. Mallard began to feel freer when she thought about how much she loved him and the times she didn’t. Her strongest impulse of her being was the possession of her self-assertion, “Free! Body and soul free (Chopin 2)!”
At first glance, the author’s deception is a twisted flirtation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. When looking past the surface, it shows a larger reflection to life. This is an all too believable tale of the crime against yourself you commit when allowing your emotions to steer your life. Sometimes it’s better to not react immediately, but to respond. I also flirted with the idea during the second time I read it, in between each line the author was screaming - What is the price of freedom? Is it the same price of fear? Perhaps this was a small mirror to our trapped selves. What parts of ourselves have we allowed ourselves to become slaves to circumstance? Is the price of freedom death? If so, why do we accept such a hefty price?
I believe it is because we are more familiar with death than the freedom of life, at least the author, Kate Chopin is. She was the third of five children. She was the only one of her parents’ children to live past the age of twenty-five. When she was 5 and a half, her father was killed in a train, crossing a bridge. The bridge collapsed. She was then raised by all of the women in her family, her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. Not surprising to me, all of them are widows and all of them extremely educated and independent. Her mother was legally separated and ran her own shipping business. http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/hour/katebio.html
This story could just be the author’s twisted imaginative version of how she wished her dad would have walked through the doors and her mom would have died instead. Perhaps Kate reflected to the pain of hearing her mother talk about finally having freedom. Kate appears to be a daddy's girl, and could not comprehend why her mother celebrated over the death of her father. Was this is Kate's preferred ending, if her dad had returned and her mom had died from her own heart's disease? Notice how The author says that Mrs. Mallard died of a "Heart Disease" as to say that her mother's heart is plagued from her own freedom song that it was sickening and caused an internal death. On a wider scope, perhaps we all are suffering from our own heart disease, secretly longing for freedom while being steered by fear. Perhaps we are all slaves to our circumstance slowly dying inside. The question still haunts, what is the price of freedom?