Story Of An Hour Literary Analysis

“The Story of an Hour,” written by Kate Chopin is a short story that uses the protagonist to show how it was for women of the nineteenth century. While using the oppression of marriage, gender inequality and societal fear of independence, Chopin addresses in her short story the stratification of females in the nineteenth century. Mrs. Mallard has a heart condition where everyone in her family perceives her as weak and feeble. She is told, very carefully, that her husband has been killed in a railroad disaster. She then goes off to be alone in a room to grieve and to think about the information she had just learned. While she is in her room, she is overcome by grief and then overcome by an intense feeling of freedom. Her sister, Josephine, is
It is a forbidden feeling of independence. The initial joy she feels and tries to “beat it back with her will,” proves that such resistance reveals how society would view the pleasure as an unacceptable act for a woman. Life offers no protection for this kind of joy, and the rest of society would never accept or understand it. “There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending her in that women and men believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature.” (Chopin p. 401) The way Mrs. Mallard describes her relationship with her husband versus how she feels after she hears he has died is like coming up for a breath of fresh air after fear of drowning. She is overcome with new profound feelings of joy for the rest of her life, feelings in which society would be unable to understand. Mrs. Mallard is explaining the unhappiness she is feeling through-out her life with Mr. Mallard, in such a way that she is indirectly attacking her husband. She is finally able to express her new-found joy without feeling the weight of her husbands will on her