Story Of An Hour Literary Analysis

The open window in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” represents freedom, independence, and opportunities. As Louise sits in her chair in her chair and looks out the open window, she realizes the opportunities she has now that her husband is dead. She “sees tops of trees, the delicious breath of rain in the air, a peddler crying his wares, she hears a song, and countless sparrows twittering in the eaves” (1). Everything that Louise experiences is joyous and promising of new opportunities. “But, for one climatic hour of her life, Louise does truly taste joy. For one hour of emotion, Louise does glimpse means and fulfillment. To be fully alive, then, is to engage in heightened consciousness, to observe and connect with the world around one’s …show more content…
Louise continues by saying that after she sees beyond that bitter moment she sees the years to come and they were going to be filled with joy, freedom, and independence. She no longer is oppressed due to her unhappy marriage with Brently. “This is a reversal of patriarchal oppression of woman and in this context, the depiction of Mrs. Mallard’s abnormal response to her husband’s death, especially her joy at her bereavement” (Shen 122). When Calixta sees Alcée for the first time in years, “she was a little fuller of figure that five years before when she married; but she had lost nothing of her vivacity” (Chopin 154). When a bolt of lightning struck a tree, Calixta fell backwards into Alcée’s arms. Chopin begins to describe their contact as “warm.” Kate Chopin continues the story by saying that Calixta and Alcée have an affair. Calixta’s marriage is oppressive and the cause of her unhappiness, therefore, that is the cause of her affair. When Edna finds her feelings for Robert, she decides that she no longer wants to live with her husband and children, and this shows that she was oppressed in her marriage, unhappy, and wanted to get away. “Chopin reveals how women are being defined by a male construct of motherhood that not only denies their individual identity, but also continually reinforces a sense of inferiority” (Streater 407). Edna’s husband was possessive and she …show more content…
Louise was not sure what it was nor did she know what it was. “But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her, though the sounds, the scents, the color filled the air” (Chopin 1). “The desire for freedom is ironically depicted as an external monster or ghost…When Mrs. Mallard ceases resisting the invading ghost, it succeeds in ‘possessing’ her and sending out the word ‘free’ from within her body” (Shen 119-120). Once she accepts the “possessive ghost,” she become free for once in her life. She felt as if the life she was breathing from the open window was magical. She does not want her freedom and independence to be taken away from her again. When Louise sees her husband and realizes that he is not dead, she dies. “When the doctors came they say she had died of heart disease” (Chopin 2) when in reality, the cause of her death was her loss of freedom and independence. Though Calixta does not die, she does not want her happiness taken away from her again. When she has her affair with Alcée, she is happy again. Chopin chooses to close with, “So the storm passed and everyone was happy” (156). The storm represents the affair; therefore, once the affair is complete Calixta is happy once again. Lastly, Edna in “The Awakening” commits suicide so she can be in control of her life. “She went on and on…unable

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The Story Of An Hour Literary Analysis