Story Of An Hour Literary Analysis

Sarena Bartrom
Dr. Comber
English 111
Writing Project 1: Final Draft
September 15, 2013

Could It Be Karma?

What could possibly go through a woman’s mind to make her feel overwhelmed with happiness after she finds out her husband has just died? What is the price of freedom? Is karma a real effect of what happens in our lives? These are the kind of questions I asked myself after reading “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin. This short story is a beautiful piece of artwork. The details that Chopin shares within the text is beautiful. There is a lot of area for your imagination to wander around and create different interpretations. Chopin depicts the tale of a woman who has just been notified of her husband’s death
and the range of emotions that take over her. The purpose of this short story is to really make the reader think about all of the emotions that Mrs. Mallard felt and why she felt this way. Kate Chopin was born in 1850.
She is a very well-known early American female writer. She spent most over her time living in Missouri, but she enjoyed writing about Louisiana, where she lived for twelve years. Kate valued family and enjoyed the ‘home-life.’ She is most known for her novel The Awakening. (Wyatt) Mrs. Mallard suffers from heart troubles. Mrs. Mallard’s sister, Josephine, told Mrs. Mallard that her husband died in a train accident. At first Mrs. Mallard was saddened and wept. After a brief period of grieving, Mrs. Mallard was overcome by joy and excitement. She was so happy that she will finally be free and independent. At that point, she felt glad that her husband had died. Mrs. Mallard looks up to her husband walking through the door, and is so shocked that she actually dies. There are many questions that run through my mind as to why Mrs. Mallard felt these ways. Why was Mrs. Mallard happy that her husband was dead? Did Mrs. Mallard’s husband beat her? Did Mrs. Mallard want him to die because of something he did? What I really had trouble understanding was why Mrs. Mallard thought that her sister actually told her that her husband had died. Was she just dreaming? Was she hallucinating? Or was it all a plan, possibly a
conspiracy? Why did Mrs. Mallard’s husband make her feel weighed down with no control? “Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.” (Chopin) It was obvious Mrs. Mallard wasn’t completely happy with her husband. “And yet she had loved him—sometimes. Often she had not.” (Chopin) Mrs. Mallard may not have known what she was getting herself into when she married Mr. Mallard. She didn’t think she would end up as unhappy as she has been. Mrs. Mallard has been shoving her stress deep inside for a while now. For whatever the reason may have been, Mrs.
Mallard wanted a divorce from her husband, but the thought of being alone terrified her, so she has just stayed with him. “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one to follow her.” (Chopin) The way that Chopin describes the way she wept “with abandonment,” and “would have no one to follow her” (Chopin) means that now Mrs. Mallard knew she was going to be alone and she was saddened. The emphasis that Chopin puts on the fact that Mrs. Mallard would now be alone supports my theory. I believe that since Mrs. Mallard was happy that her husband was dead, she received her death as a dose of
karma. “In this world nothing happens to a person that he does not for some reason or other deserve.” (Savada) This statements explains the theory of karma. If someone does something wrong in order to hurt someone or benefit themselves unfairly, they deserve something equally wrong done to them that gives the same effects. I believe Mrs. Mallard’s wrong-doings caught up to her and caused her death. Perhaps she was seeing another man and that’s why she was happy of her husband’s death; she could finally be with the other man. Since she died, she could never be happy in the end with the other man. After all, her poor husband died not knowing the truth, his wife didn’t deserve to live happy if her husband died sad. The truth is, there are many explanations for all of these questions. Everyone interprets everything in a uniquely different way. The answers are what your imagination opens up to you.

Works Cited

Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour” The Prentice Hall Guide for College Writers Tenth Edition. Stephen Reid. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson, 2014. Pages 403-405. Print.

Sayada, Ven. Mahasi. "The Theory of Karma." Basic Buddhism. BDEA/BuddhaNet. Web. 1 Sep 2013. .

Wyatt, Neal. "Biography of Kate Chopin." Virginia Commonwealth University. Web. 1 Sep 2013. .