Mrs: Marriage and Mrs. Mallard Essay

Submitted By Sophia-Turnbough
Words: 1152
Pages: 5
Open Document
Sophia Turnbough
C. Smith-Instructor
English 101
December 9, 2013
Literary Analysis Final
Mrs. Mallard’s Emotions Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” is a short story that brings self-assertion, love, guilt, and death all during the span of a life-altering ironic hour. Although happily married to Mr. Brently Mallard, Mrs. Louise Mallard was living in the patriarchal struggles of the nineteenth century. For an independent woman, this may bring slight unhappiness. Throughout this symbolic story, Mrs. Mallard feels a range of emotions firstly grief and ending in joy. In the beginning of this story, Mrs. Mallard is presented as an emotionally fragile woman and this is why her sister is careful to break the news of her husband’s death to her. Rather than feeling numb as Louise imagines a widow would feel, she cries dramatically. Her violent reaction immediately shows that she is an emotional, demonstrative woman. As a result to her strife, Louise resorts to locking herself in a room upstairs, in order to evaluate her newfound emotions. While she is alone, she begins to realize what her husband’s death means to her. Louise begins to realize that she is now an independent woman, a realization that enlivens and excites her. Mrs. Mallard’s marriage was dull. She was swept up in the acts of her times; she was lost in the shuffle. The conditions of her marriage, which were assumed to be a simplistic, nice one, caused her to think of the potential life that Brently’s death could bring, even throughout her grief. When her husband was alive, she had to live to please him, but only when he dies does she find the freedom to live for herself again. Louise begins to feel guilty for her new thoughts because she did feel love for Brently. Nonetheless, she still continued to tell herself that none of that mattered because she surely cherished too much her long lost independence even more than her love for Brently Mallard. She did truly love him, but her self-assertion meant more to her (Deneau). In “The Story of an Hour”, Louise’s ‘heart trouble’ and the act of death are very representative symbols that add meaning to the story. One of the main symbols that gives Louise so much potency is her ‘heart problem’. In the story, Kate Chopin writes as if it is only a physical condition. However, it is implied that this ‘heart condition’ represents her range of emotions. It indicates the extent to which she feels that marriage has oppressed her. This ‘heart problem’ is a vague label Chopin uses to suggest that this is a problem both within her body and mind and her marriage. In the hour during which Louise believes Brently is dead, her heart beats strongly- showing that her independence is also felt physically. Her heart races and her whole body feels warm. She spreads her arms wide, symbolically welcoming her new life-“Body and soul free!” It is only when Brently returns to their home that her ‘heart trouble’ reappears, the trouble that takes her life. Another main symbol in “The Story of an Hour” is death. Death is a symbol in this story in two ways. The first representation is that the story allowed Louise to explore the feelings beyong the typical grief of loss that one may feel due to a loved one passing. The news of death welcomes Louise’s freedom that this tragedy has brought to her. Ultimately, the fact of death is certain, the only question being whose death. Secondly, death lurks over the Mallard’s house like a constant specter. People are always trying to keep it away. Mr. Mallard’s death in the train accident came to an unexpected shock for everyone. Therefore, the majority of the story features Mrs. Mallard trying to process her husband’s death, only to find that in the end he had cheated death after all. As a result, Louise was soon to reach her fate of shock and succumbed to her own death which in the abstract was more prepared for anyway, due to her ‘heart trouble’ (Jamil). Irony is a literary element that plays an important part
Show More

Related Documents: Mrs: Marriage and Mrs. Mallard Essay

Women's Role In The Story Of An Hour

life, Mrs. Mallard. She is a middle-aged woman with heart trouble. Her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richard found out terrible news that Mr. Mallard has died. They try to figure out the most reasonable and easiest way to break the news to Mrs. Mallard, considering she has a heart condition. Immediately, Mrs. Mallard shocked them by her excitement and joy of her husband’s death. She now feels free from her caged and depressed marriage and can now live for herself. Mrs. Mallard was not…

Words 558 - Pages 3

Story Of An Hour Descriptive Language Essay

author Kate Chopin tells a story of a woman, Mrs. Mallard, who learns of her husband’s death from a railroad disaster. When Mrs. Mallard discovers this, her reaction is not what you would expect from what should be, a grieving wife. She feels autonomy, instead of grief stricken and despondence. At the end of the story, Mrs. Louise Mallard finds that her husband Bradley was not killed in the accident, the author leads the reader to believe that Mrs. Mallard dies from the disappointment of seeing her…

Words 750 - Pages 3

Story Of An Hour Literary Analysis

Chopin that tells of a wife, Mrs. Mallard who that has a weak heart, the joy she feels when she learns of her spouse’s death. That gleefulness was soon shattered though when Mrs. Mallard sees that her husband lives and she dies from the shock. This story is a wonderful example of man vs. self and man vs society conflict and it shows a variety of themes. The Story of an Hour’s main conflict is about man vs. self or in this case Mrs. Mallard vs. herself. When Mrs. Mallard learns of her husband’s death…

Words 600 - Pages 3

A Comparison Of A Jury Of Her Peers And The Story Of An Hour

on women’s experiences with marriage. Glaspell’s short story “A Jury of Her Peers” and Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” show that marriage can be oppressive by describing what happens when a marriage suddenly ends. In “The Story of an Hour” Chopin focuses on a middle-aged woman Louise Mallard who sits in her room for one hour to process the news that her husband has been killed in a terrible accident. Instead…

Words 1058 - Pages 5

Story Of An Hour Setting

the oppression of her marriage and relationship with her sister along with the freedom that her husband’s death promises Mrs. Mallard. The house in the story represents the entrapment Louise Mallard feels in her marriage and in her relationship to her sister. Her husband, Brently Mallard, and her sister are overprotective of Louise, and she has very little control over her life. The downstairs represents reality. This is where she learns of her husband’s death. When Mrs. Mallard goes upstairs, she…

Words 516 - Pages 3

Personification In A Story Of An Hour

was expected to be just a housewife, taking care of her children When Mrs. Mallard heard about her, husband’s death, she went upstairs to her room and locked the door. Her personal nature was to be upset of the devastating news. “When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone.” She realizes that she has gained freedom from a depressing marriage and from her dominant husband. While, Mrs. Mallard is staring out the window crying, she is thinking about her independence…

Words 572 - Pages 3

Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

several reasons. First I like the theme of “The Story of an Hour”. Oppressiveness of women in marrige, the story centers around the diffrent emotions Mrs. Mallard feels with recieveing the news of her husbands passing. Although Mrs. Mallard did love Mr. Mallard she felt oppressed not only by marriage but by Mr. Mallard. Mrs. Mallard called marriage a strife between a man and a women “There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind presistence…

Words 315 - Pages 2

Story of and Hour Essay examples

Hour” Mrs. Mallard is awakened with thoughts of freedom following the news of her husband’s death. Louise battles her feelings of love for Brently and love for herself. Mrs. Mallard never doubted the love her husband has for her, but her love was not as strong. She indicates something is missing in their marriage; maybe a lack of passion, independence and enthusiasm. They are married to cope with society’s norm. “And yet she had loved him- sometimes. Often she had not.” Therefore Mrs. and Mr…

Words 354 - Pages 2

Kate Chopin Research Paper

of an Hour,” which about a woman named Mrs. Mallard who was in an unhappy marriage and how she had an unusual reaction to her husband’s death. It is evident through Mrs. Mallard’s feelings about her husband, how she felt when her husband died, and how she felt oppressed by her husband that she did not love her husband. Mrs. Mallard told the reader that she had rarely loved her husband, Brently. After learning that her husband had supposedly died, Mrs. Mallard began thinking of how she felt about him…

Words 394 - Pages 2

Irony In The Story Of An Hour By Kate Chopin

Marriage is the uniting of two people, they commit to each other and become bounded to one another. The belief about marriage is that is promises happiness, yet in order to fully receive that happiness individuals have to limit their freedoms, thoughts, and actions. In the short story“The Story of an Hour”, by Kate Chopin, the use of irony helps the reader understand the difficulties marriage sets on a person. The protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, encounters a life changing moment; she is being informed…

Words 325 - Pages 2