Story Of An Hour

2 Pages 560 Words

Kate Chopin’s “The Story of and Hour”, deals with emotions felt by one character that are completely misunderstood by the other characters in the story. Mrs. Mallard’s actions and how she is feeling end up being extremely ironic and comes to a shock to the reader. News of her husband’s death had not yet reached Mrs. Mallard yet and friends and family wanted to break the information to her as gently as possible.
The characters all know that Mrs. Mallard has heart trouble and any upsetting news might not be good for her. What they didn’t know is that Mrs. Mallard’s feelings for her husband weren’t as strong and deep as they had all thought. When they break the news to her, “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She started to weep. When she was done crying, she went away to her room alone and had no one follow her. She sat there alone, motionless, with an occasional sob. Mrs. Mallard then starts to think.
She is sitting in the chair and staring off into the blue sky. Then at one instance she begins to notice something coming to her. “She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.” She kept saying over and over again, “free, free, free!” Her pulse started to beat fast and her body started to warm. She was excited. Of course Mrs. Mallard would weep at the funeral with the sight of her dead husband, but she was looking beyond that point. She was looking at those coming years where there would be nobody to live for except herself and she loved it. “Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering. “Louise then immediately recognizes her two selves and comprehends how each will co-exist, the old finally giving way to the one new self. Mrs. Mallard will grieve for the husba...