Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour

In Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of an Hour”, the reader gets insight on how oppression can bring joy to those gaining freedom in their lives. A wife who’s been under the dominance of her husband finds the feeling of freedom when she is made to believe her husband is dead. In the poem “Freedom” by Khalil Gibran, the writer speaks of a constant fight for freedom under the impediments we have in our own lives as well as the joy that can be found in newfound freedom. This poem, like the short story, illustrates how oppression leads to a search for freedom in life.

As the poem begins, Mrs. Mallard learns that her husband is on the list of “killed” after a railroad disaster. She is soon struck with a feeling of paralyzing grief, when she

The reader soon learns that while she is “young” she has a face with “lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength” representing how she’s lived a submissive life to her husband. This gives understanding to why the feeling “approaching to possess her” is new to her and she is now able to express that she is free. While her husband’s death was mournful it also gave her a chance at freedom, which makes it easier to push off the sudden guilt and sadness to look towards the future. She now had the opportunity to “live for herself”, unlike the years of oppression she had faced her “body and soul [were] free”. Until suddenly her husband walks through the door and she suddenly dies. Mrs. Mallard is ironically diagnosed by doctors with the “joy that kills,” as heart disease. It is clear to the reader that she isn’t just suffering from heart disease but from the loss of freedom when her husband arrives. Mrs. Mallard’s freedom ended with a “latchkey” that killed all hope in her heart of ending the oppression she’d

The speaker states that “you can only be free…when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.” It is you who sets the “chains” in your life that push you away from finding freedom. In the poem he reveals that there are ways to get on the path of receiving the ideal sense of freedom. He describes being held under the search for freedom as a “handcuff” like Mrs. Mallard’s under the “handcuff[s]” of her marriage. He explains his first step as recognizing those chains present within your life. For Mrs. Mallard she quickly realizes that her chain was her husband when she finds the feeling of enlightenment from believing her husband is dead. These chains may be restraining you from your own personal battles and from the things, you make a part of your life. Whether a sense of oppression exists within yourself or from the challenges of the world, it can all lead to a hope for freedom. In both the poem and the short story, it is clear that where the source of your oppression is, the next step is seeing the light to live the life you have