The Open Window In The Story Of An Hour

Marie Curie once said, “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” Kate Chopin’s, The Story of an Hour is based in the late 19th century where women are fighting harder to get the same rights as men. Brently and Louise Mallard are husband and wife, in the late 19th century where some women were treated as housewives. The men were always superior to women and women were considered physically weaker nor allowed to socialize as freely as men. In The Story of an Hour, Louise Mallard symbolizes the open window in the concept of a double perception because one can argue that, Louise and the window can be viewed from two different perspectives within the thought
Before telling the news to Louise, “Her sister, Josephine, reminded us of her conventional thought that women should attach themselves to their husbands,” (Wan 167) but Louise was already in a self-confinement relationship in the course of her life with her husband. Therefore, she did not react to the news as expected, “When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her” (Chopin 428). This is a distinguishment of isolation because she did not want to be consolidated, all she wanted to do was be alone. The open window is located inside the room that she entered but the window has the ability to also isolate the world; if the open window would become a closed window it would leave the room without the sense of the outside world enclosing her just like her
Chopin stated, “But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely…. There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself” (429). This was a new stage in her life, a time to start over as, “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life” (Chopin 428). The window showed a new beginning of growth from the outside just as Louise showed a new beginning of freedom and hope within herself because of her husband’s death. Now she could do anything she wanted without having to ask or report herself to her husband. She had endless possibilities of a happy life, this was an opportunity of a way out. It’s important to realize, that windows give the sense of freedom through their endless possibilities of an opportunity through the