The story of an hour

Woman’s rights have changed very much through the last centuries. In the 19th century women were not allowed to make decisions. It was the man who ruled at home. Women just had to obey the man’s orders and do what they were told. Their place was in the kitchen, while the man dominated everything else. In the short story “The Story of An Hour, 1894 by Kate Chopin” we see that Mrs. Mallard, who is the main character of the story, tries to drown her sorrows about the tragically death of her husband. But when she has thought it through, she actually is not that sad anyway. She feels relieved, she feels free. She knows it is going to be hard to see his body and attend the funeral, but at the same time she looks forward to the years that belong entirely to her. No man is ruling over her life anymore: (Chopin, page 2) “"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.”
One day Mrs. Mallard’s sister comes to visit her. She has some very sad news and prepares to tell them as gently as possible, because of the weak heart Mrs. Mallard has. Both her name and the fact about her weak heart, give hints about her personality even before the actual story begins. Mallard is the name of a small and shy duck, which is the most ordinary bird in the world. This name gives associations of being ignored, overlooked and not be taken serious. Mrs. Mallard’s weak heart can also be a symbol for that she has a troubled marriage, because the heart is always metaphorically connected with love.
The sister tells Mrs. Mallard that her husband has died in a train accident. Everybody thinks that this is going to become a huge shock for Mrs. Mallard and become very difficult for her to get over. But in fact, this actually opens a new gate for her, a whole new life: (Chopin, page 1) “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life.” It is like a whole new world to Mrs. Mallard. Her mind gets filled with ideas that she has never thought of before. The reason why we hear about these thoughts is because her husband is dead, and now she is able to do something that her husband never would let her do, rule over her own life.
The author Kate Chopin uses words as “wild” and “storm” to describe the way Mrs. Mallard reacts with the situation, and by doing this, she makes her reaction seem like a natural disaster, which is instant, impossible to control and very powerful. The way she reacts to the news of her husband’s death shows a lot about her. She is not a typical 19th century woman, she stands out. This can be seen here: (Chopin, page 1) “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance.” Mrs. Mallard reacts very strongly, a total contrast to what a woman should do in that time. She is a symbol for the other women in her time. She is innovative.

Another symbol in the short story could be where Mrs. Mallard sinks into an armchair to think it all through. The armchair is described as “comfortable” and is placed, so it faces an open window. This does not only show her longings for freedom, but is also a symbol of her ordinary life. She just sits there, quiet and motionless, looking at life going by without her. This is a good example of the daily life of Victorian women. There is also a symbol in the sky she looks at from her armchair: (Chopin, page 1) “There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.” The clouds are piled up high, just as her inner pressure is. She also sees patches of blue sky, which can be seen as glimpses of hope for her future. As it can be seen the author Kate Chopin has written the short story in a way that it is filled with symbols and metaphors, which shows the state of mind Mrs. Mallard is in after the death of her husband.

This story is, as I said, written in a time when women were oppressed by men, and now, because of the death of her husband, new opportunities becomes open for Mrs. Mallard. But she cannot relax yet. She must hide her happiness from her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend, Richard. Because although she is happy for the death of her husband, she still has to pretend like it is very hard for her, because that is what the society expects from her. Mrs. Mallard’s husband actually loved her, although love was not, at that time, what love is today. At that time love was more about the most practical reasons to get married than the feelings you have inside for each other. The problem is that she did not love him as much as he loved her: (Chopin, page 2) “And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not.”
Nowadays if you do not love your partner you can just get a divorce. This was not the reality in the 19th century. Here they followed what you say when you get married: “Till death do you part”. It was a hard fact, but it was reality. The front door suddenly opens in the end of the story and in steps Mrs. Mallard’s husband, who had been far away from the scene of the accident and were perfectly fine. This of course surprises everybody, especially Mrs. Mallard, since it actually makes Mrs. Mallard’s heart trouble even worse and ends up killing her. This dream of a free life ends when her husband enters the house, not knowing anything about the train accident. This kills the last flame of Mrs. Mallard’s hope. She cannot live in this “jail” anymore and has now seen, and felt, what life also can offer. When she feels this, she simply cannot return to her old life.
The short story ends in an ironic way: (Chopin, page 3) “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease — of the joy that kills.” Mrs. Mallard’s surroundings think that she died from a heart attack, because of the happiness she suddenly felt, when it turned out her husband was alive. They had no idea about how she really felt. They simply could not see that she was not happy. None of them had no idea about that it could be from disappointment. That is how it was in the 19th century. Nobody noticed the unhappy wife.