An Hour Thesis

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“The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin is a short story that discusses the oppression of women in the late nineteenth century when women were fighting to get their rights. Author Kate Chopin started the story by describing a wife, Mrs. Mallard’s, feeling about receiving the news of her husband’s passing. In the beginning, Mrs. Mallard was shocked and cried in her sister’s arms, Josephine, who told her about the railroad disaster that caused the death of her husband. Next, Mrs. Mallard became more relaxed and started thinking about the benefits of the tragedy in a positive paradigm. Later, her hopes of a new brilliant life was gone at the moment when her husband walks through the front door making her realize that he is not dead and that she is not yet free. Finally, Chopin ends the story with an ironic twist. Mrs. Mallard died at the end of the story by a heart disease because she was not able to deal with many rapid events in just under a one hour period. II. Biography of the Author: Kate Chopin was born on February 8, 1850, in St. Louis, Missouri. She began to write after her husband 's death. She has more than …show more content…

Mallard had. Chopin uses the open window, the delicious breath of rain in the air, and the sparrows twittering in a symbolic way to represent the freedom that lay ahead in Mrs. Mallard’s life. Mrs. Mallard “could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life” (Ronson, 215). In the quote it is clear that the season is spring, which is symbolic of new beginnings. Chopin also expresses Mrs. Mallard’s feelings towards these changes, “but she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.” (129). Symbolism is used by Chopin to express Mrs. Mallard’s joy and her new perspective to new changes into her