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Story Of An Hour Comparative Essay

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Both Kate Chopin and Guy de Maupassant present the struggles women in the late 19th century faced in order to gain happiness. In The Story of an Hour, Kate Chopin presents a woman who only experiences one hour of pure happiness throughout her whole marriage. Guy de Maupassant introduces in The Necklace a woman named Mathilde Loisel for whom happiness completely depends on her material wealth. The two protagonists encounter different situations and have different yearnings, however they both achieve happiness in their own ways for a brief moment.

The Story of an Hour was written in 1894, at a time where women barely had any rights or freedom; married women had to live their lives imprisoned in their homes carrying out domestic chores and looking …show more content…

Mallard’s (Louise Mallard) entrapment in her own marriage. She only escapes that entrapment and feels joy when her sister reveals the news of her husband’s death to her. The first hint showing us that she perceived this message differently from other women in her time is when Kate Chopin uses this complex sentence “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance” to describe her initial reaction. Later, this sense of aberration is expanded when it mentions “facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair”. The adjectives “open” and “comfortable” are symbolic as they give positive connotations, which juxtaposes with the tragic moment the readers would perceive this as. It is through this “open window”, sitting on this "comfortable, roomy chair” where Mrs. Mallard starts to see symbols of freedom. “She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air.” The semantic field of nature, together with the noun “spring” reveals the freedom she feels and symbolises her excitement and chance of new life. Furthermore, the vivid imagery of the “patches of blue sky” in the following paragraph represents the boundless opportunities waiting for Mrs. Mallard. By using these language techniques, Kate Chopin effectively mirrors the sudden change of emotions Mrs. Mallard experiences in a brief period of time, thus creating a more dramatic effect on the

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This is a story about Mrs. Mallard and her husband. As Ms. Chopin sets the opening scene Mrs. Mallard’s sister is trying to break the news of Mr. Mallard’s death in a train crash. Because Mrs. Mallard suffers from heart failure, her sister had to break the news very gently. Upon hearing the news, Mrs. Mallard wept bitterly, then locked herself in her room. She sat by her open window and breathed deeply of the fresh air when suddenly, she felt a sudden sense freedom.

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Mallard, and the girlfriend want to communicate how they feel and do not want to be constrained. Chopin was a feminist which encouraged her to write The Story of an Hour. Women do not want to feel possessed and want to be self-asserted (Chopin, 2004). Women are told to respect their marriages and must abide to society. Mrs. Mallard feels free of duties when she understands that her husband has deceased.

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In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” demonstrates the personal growth of the dynamic protagonist Louise Mallard, after hearing news of her husband’s death. The third-person narrator telling the story uses deep insight into Mrs. Mallard’s thoughts and emotions as she sorts through her feelings after her sister informs her of her husband’s death. During a Character analysis of Louise Mallard, a reader will understand that the delicate Mrs. Mallard transforms her grief into excitement over her newly discovered freedom that leads to her death. As Mrs. Mallard sorts through her grief she realizes the importance of this freedom and the strength that she will be able to do it alone.

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Every person has the right to be and feel free. They have the right to be independent and live happily. Kate Chopin’s, “The Story of an Hour,” focuses on sixty minutes in the life of a young Mrs. Mallard. Upon learning of her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard experiences a revelation about her future without a husband. Her life, due to heart problems, suddenly ends after she unexpectedly finds out her husband is actually alive.

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Mallard’s emotional journey. From her initial reluctance to her ultimate freedom, Mrs. Mallard reflects nature’s everchanging beauty. Chopin conducts a symphony of imagery that pieces together the life and death of Louise Mallard. It is evident that Chopin uses Louise Mallard’s story to convey her perception of women and men’s roles during the late 1800’s by showcasing her acceptance of the freedom that could only be gained by a single woman. The descriptions used in Chopin’s work are a marvelous representation of her character’s struggle with inner conflicts.

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The Short Story The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin explores the emotions of Louise Mallard a woman with a heart disease. In the hour that the story is told, it ranges from showing Mrs. Mallard different reactions to learning of her husbands death to him surprisingly showing up alive and eventually her untimely death from a heart disease. Although only a brief period of time is shown, many emotions are revealed through the third person omniscient point of view. This point of view shows more than just the protagonists thoughts and is not limited to one person. It allows the readers to know something about Mrs. Mallard that she does not as the story ends after Mrs. Mallard has already died.

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We think that the form of the “Imaginary” mentioned in Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory of Mrs. Mallards family and friends “imagining” that the devastated new of Mr. Mallard’s death would cause her a heart attack, however later on in the story it was mentioned that she was in fact relieved to know she was a free woman of her marriage. Consequently, the reality of Mrs. Mallard’s thoughts, perceptions and feelings were not the same as others may have assumed or imagined to be. Based on stereotypical standards of society this was misunderstood because a wife should feel an enormous pain for the death of her husband. As the story continues, when Josephine whose Mrs. Mallard’s sister told her about the death of Mr. Mallard, instead of reacting in shock as “many women would’ve (Chopin, The Story of an Hour)” done so, Mrs. Mallard “wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms.

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