...Kate Chopin’s short story, “Story of an Hour,” is absolutely a stunning piece of writing which hooks the reader from the beginning, keep them entertained throughout the middle of the story, and leaves the reader with a shocking hit in the face at the end which leaves the reader in surprise and many questions. This short story is about Mrs. Mallard and the reader has been told in the very first sentence that, “…Mrs. Mallard [is] afflicted with a heart trouble.” Because of this heart trouble, “great care is taken to care to break the news of her husband,” who died in a train accident. Her sister is very gentle and is tip toeing around before really telling her the news. Her very first reaction to the news was to, “…wept at once, with sudden, wild...
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...Kate Chopin, born on February 8, 1850 was a novelist and short stories author in the later years of her life. She grew up in the mid 1800's, which was during the time of the Civil War. Kate Chopin was not your ordinary, obedient woman in the time of her existence. Women were taught to be submissive and quiet while Kate was taught by her widowed role models to be independent and outspoken. One of Kate's most famous works was "The Story of an Hour" which is centered on a woman named Louise Mallard who is diagnosed with heart disease. Her husband died in a railroad accident and her sister Josephine informs her as delicately as possible because of her condition. At first, Louise Mallard is heartbroken and mourns her husband's death, then as she looks ahead to what her future holds, she realizes that she is...
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...Kate Chopin is one of the most famous writers in 19th century. Her short story “ The Story of An Hour” is one of the most outstanding works in her numerous novels. Although the length of this story is short, and it has less than two-thousands words, it wins the favor of many critics because its exquisite language, dramatic plot, changing creative skills, and deep themes. This story tells readers a one hour story in Mrs. Mallard’s life. Mrs. Mallard has heart disease, so her sister and her husband’s friend tell the news of Mr. Mallard’s death very carefully. They both think when Louise hears the news, she will get sick. However, Mrs. Mallard feels very excited, even looks like a goddess of Victory. Though the news makes her sad, she finally...
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...All within an hour everything about Louise Mallard’s emotional and physical struggle is vividly portrayed. In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, freedom is interchangeable with the window and chair; and her heart troubles depicts her well-being as a whole. The window exhibits the freedoms and opportunities that await her after her husband Brently Mallard’s supposed death. Thinking of what the future held inevitability contemplated her mind. “She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; but she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely.” (Chopin 1) This indeed points out that in a sense Louis had moved on from grief and is now more concerned...
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...The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin is a short story about a woman, known as Mrs. Mallard, getting heart breaking news that her husband had passed. While she was in grief, she slowly began to accept the news as a good thing. Once she started thinking that her husband’s death wasn’t a bad thing, the door opened and standing there was her husband, Mr. Mallard. After she saw him there, it was too late and she died. The doctors claimed, “She had died from heart disease, a joy that kills.” Was that the real reason though? Mrs. Mallard did not die from heart disease, she died from distress. Distress is extreme sorrow, anxiety, or pain. When Mrs. Mallard received the news, she was in complete dismay. After weeping in her sister’s arms for...
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...The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin literary device that created reader interest or to build depth was the plot. The story opens with Louise Mallard who has heart problems, must be informed of her husband Brently Mallard's death. Louise Mallard’s sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richards feel that they must communicate the passing of her husband as delicate as possible. Josephine and Richards reluctantly tell her about her husband’s death "in broken sentences.” Josephine and Richards believe that this shocking news will cause her heart problems to get worse. Louise Mallard cries in her grief and eventually goes to her room to be alone. Louise sits in a chair facing an open window looking at the open square in front of her house. The...
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...Joy That Kills Do you know how you will react upon hearing the ever so grave news that someone close to you has perished? Imagine, if only but for a moment, the range, intensity, and volume of emotions that will be flowing through your consciousness. In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, we see this scenario played out in a woman’s life during one emotion-filled hour. Louise Mallard is a woman afflicted with heart problems who, upon hearing the unfortunate news of her husband’s death, is thrust into a moment in time when the life she has come to know suddenly begins to take on a whole new meaning. Interwoven in this timeless tale are themes of self-assertion, oppression, repression, and freedom at a time when woman were anything but. Through her use of irony, symbolism, suspense, and descriptive narratives, Chopin masterfully captures the essence of one woman’s plight in “The Story of an Hour”. The use of irony is an effective literary tool Chopin uses throughout her story to keep the audience cognitive of the contradictions inherent in people and situations. Early on, we see an example of situational irony when we are told Louise Mallard, after being informed of her husband’s death, “Did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzing inability to accept its significance” (215). We are further told, “She wept at once, with wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms” (215). Louise appeared to everyone in the house to be extremely sad and goes...
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...In the case of this story, the complication stage itself embodies the idea of complicated. We'll explain: Mrs. Mallard complicates the traditional or expected reaction of a widow to a husband's death by reacting in a totally unusual way. Instead of refusing to believe the news or take it in, she instantly grasps it and cries her eyes out, before going off to be alone. All this is meant to show us that she's an unusual widow, and it prepares us for the climax to follow. Mrs. Mallard struggles with her grief, and then also struggles with a piece of new knowledge coming at her. She tries to avoid it, but can't completely push it off. Finally, she succumbs to the realization that she is free, and that she's glad. After the tragedy of hearing such...
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...The Mallard’s house is the area where the entire action of Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” takes place and it is extremely significant in the changing reactions of the main character, Mrs. Mallard. The house has two floors, which are significantly different, both in the reactions and in the emotions brought out in each one. Mrs. Mallard’s emotions and reactions to her husband’s death change dramatically, in Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour;” downstairs she is overcome by grief and ultimately dies from her husband’s shocking return, while upstairs she is overjoyed by her new found freedom. Initially, the story starts downstairs, where Mrs. Mallard first hears of her husband’s death and is grief struck by the shocking news. Downstairs Mrs. Mallard is the respectable wife grieving the loss of her husband. At first Mrs. Mallard is shocked by the news of her husband’s death. She appears to be grieving the loss of her husband, but the news of his death did not sit with her as it should have, which is shown in her reaction, “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with paralyzed inability to accept its significance” (1). She knows the death of her husband is critical, but reacts seemingly different than others would as she starts to think of her life without him in a more positive light. She seems confounded over her own feelings, she has felt repressed by her marriage, but perhaps has not recognized it until now. After she learns of her husband’s death, Mrs...
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...Themes Found in Kate Chopin's Short Stories Kimberley J. Dorsey Stevenson University English 152, Writing About Literature 152-OME1 Charlotte Wulf November 14, 2010 Abstract Many of Kate Chopin’s short stories share the common themes of female oppression. The females in her stories are trying to find a way to escape their oppression and have a sense freedom and individuality. They either commit adultery or fantasize about it as a way to explore their feminine sexuality and obtain a sense of freedom. Common Themes Found in Kate Chopin's Short Stories Kate Chopin, an American novelist and short story writer. Born in 1851 and died in 1904 (cerebral hemorrhage). Chopin lived in Louisiana during her marriage to a Louisiana businessman and began writing after her husband’s death; being left to raise six children alone. Many of her stories are based on her knowledge of Creole and Cajun life during the time she lived there. She is best known for her novel “The Awakening,” considered Chopin’s masterpiece was subject to harsh criticism at the time criticism for its frank approach to sexual themes (Toth, 1988-1999, p. 1). Her attitude seen throughout her writing’s are about a woman’s place as being in the home and her purpose in life is to nurture her husband and children. Being against oppression Chopin chose to write about these issues through fiction, expressing real women. Kate Chopin is considered...
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...Kate Chopin research report Kate Chopin is most known for her literary works such as, At Fault, Beyond the Bayou, Her Letters, The Story of an Hour and Lilacs. As any one could imagine, her life events greatly impacted her writing. You see tragedy, independence, happiness, and freedom within her works. Catherine (Kate) O’Flaherty was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 8, 1850. She was the second child of Thomas O’Flaherty and Eliza Faris. Her father, Thomas, was from Galway, Ireland and her mother, Eliza, St. Louis. Kate’s family of her mother’s side was of French descent and Kate grew up speaking both English and French. She was not only bilingual but bicultural. The influence of French life and literature if evident throughout...
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...influence of Charles Darwin’s theory of sexual selection in Kate Chopin works. She describes the sexual attraction use by Chopin in her works according to Darwin’s theory. Holtman, Janet. "Failing Fictions: The Conflicting and Shifting Social Emphases Of Kate Chopin's "Local Color" Stories." Southern Quarterly 42.2 (2004): 73-88. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Apr. 2013 The presents work analyses the concept of skin color used by Kate Chopin her works. It discuss the way Southern discourses of race and class influences Chopin novels “Bayou Folk” and “A night in Acadie”. "Kate Chopin: Her Novels and Stories." Kate Chopin: The Awakening, The Storm, Stories, Biography. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2013. The website provides information about the all the novels and stories wrote by Kate Chopin. It also has her biography and a list of books, articles and essays about Kate Chopin and her works. In addition, the website has series of questions about Kate Chopin personal life and her reputation as a feminist reformer. Tolentino, Jasdomin, "Kate Chopin's Life and Personal Influence" (2008).Excellence in Research Awards.Paper 2 In this paper, Tolentino discuss Kate Chopin life and her personal influence. He explain how the relations with the members of her family, the environment in which she lives and the close people who died in her life affected her of writing her short stories “The Storm” and “ The Story of an Hour”. Bradley, Patricia L. "The Birth Of Tragedy" And "The Awakening":...
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...Marriage and Women’s Roles in the Late Nineteenth Century: Kate Copin’s Commentary on Women’s Lives in the Late 1800s Every human being deserves the right to choose how his or her own life is lived. As women in the late nineteenth century began to disassociate with cultural norms of the time period, writers began to reflect this historical shift. In Kate Chopin’s didactic short story, “The Story of an Hour,” the author demonstrates the way many women felt about their marriages during that time: trapped in a meaningless life. Chopin’s story works as a cautionary and informative commentary substantiating how women felt about divorce and marriage in the late nineteenth century, and the author attempts to educate her audience in order to show that women deserve better than a life of servitude to a husband. The circumstances surrounding Louise Mallard’s reaction to the death of her husband are at first predictable but then quickly shift to a surprising response: Louise is elated as she realizes that "there would be no one to live for during these coming years; she would live for herself" (Chopin 353). This realization deontes Chopin’s main argument in this...
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...Hannah Radney Professor Andrew J. DiNicola English 1102 July 22, 2014 Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”: Character Analysis of Louise Mallard Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” (1894) is a fictional short story presumably set in America in the late 19th century. Chopin’s story is a description of an hour in the life of Louise Mallard, the protagonist in the story. The subject of the story is the transformation of Louise Mallard after she learns about the supposed death of her husband, Brently Mallard; what she thinks and how she feels as she is alone and contemplates self-assertion for the first time. (Koloski) Chopin first introduces the reader to the main character as only Mrs. Mallard. Given the time period of the story, Chopin directs the reader to the conclusion that Mrs. Mallard has no identity of her own. This reference to her as only by her husband’s last name foreshadows how marriage represses Mrs. Mallard and realistically like many women of this time in history. The virtuous wife, in Mrs. Mallard’s world, accepts the idea that her husband has a right to impose a private will upon her. (Jamil) During the time period in which the story takes place, married women are in a subservient role to their husbands under the “femme covert laws.” “Covert refers to a woman’s legal status after marriage: legally upon marriage, the husband and wife were treated as one entity. In essence, the wife’s separate legal existence disappeared as far as property.” (Lewis 1) A married...
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...The Story of an Hour Antoine L. Womack ENG125: Introduction to Literature (ADI1431D) Instructor: Magdalena Sokolowski August 6, 2014 This story immediately identifies the main character which is Mrs. Mallard who suffers from heart trouble, by revealing to her that her husband had passed away in a tragic accident the way it was told was handled with great care, due to her own health conditions. Josephine who is Mrs. Mallard sister would be the one to do so and Richard being her Husband friend would also comfort her also with his presence. This short story is very literary capturing because it’s a story that many people can relate to and have experience some type of close death in the family. Also they with the way it was handle to break the news to her about her husband death; this is something that also many can relate to especially if they are also dealing with health issues their self. What also was literary capturing with this story was the way family members and friends took inconsideration to tell her the news about her husband being passed away. Even though the story that was told was very sorrowing the way it was said it seem as if the author put a lot of thought into the way she went about what was said. The details of the grief she felt was very literary capturing in this story. The author of this story also went into great detail to make the reader feel as if they was there and had experience this sad sorrow themselves. The way the author would build you...
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