Likhit Nayak

Professor Laura Carter

English 1102
22nd June, 2015
Views on Marriage in the Story of an Hour
The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin describes the feelings of a wife towards her
husband in the 1800s when the social status of women was much less than that of men. The
protagonist of the story, Louise Mallard, shares her thoughts on her husband death. Instead of
experiencing grief and desolation, Louise gets a newfound sense of freedom after learning that
her husband, Brently Mallard, is dead. At the end of the story, she realizes that the news of
Brentlys death was false. The shock of this realization, combined with the disappointment that
her freedom was gone, kills her. Thus, I think that Chopin presents a negative view of marriage
through The Story of an Hour and wants to inform her readers that a marriage is constraining
and oppressive for the wife. This view might be a true reflection of the era in which this story
was published.
The literary reviews of the Story of an Hour point out that Louise was oppressed in her
marriage with Brently. S. Selina Jamil writes:
As she sets aside the world of social conventions, her emotions underscore the
individuality that is awakening in her. Accompanying it is a monstrous joy that

highlights the colossal significance of self-discovery at the expense of the hollow

conventions that would dismiss her joy as horribly inappropriate and unbecoming (194).
Now, however, joy and hope lead her to an awareness that she has become, as she
realizes, Free! Body and soul free! (194). Just as she locks herself in her room and
locks out her social world, she also locks out social conventions. And thus, purging her
repressed emotions, she awakens to all the individual elements of her natural
environment. Clearly, her new emotional freedom leads to the awakening of her mind.
Throughout her article, Jamil has highlighted instances in the story where Louise experiences
emotional freedom after learning of the death of her husband. In her article on the experience of
teaching The Story of an Hour to sophomore students, Nicole Diederich discusses the views of
critics on the death of Louise. Critics have argued that Louise's death occurs because of her
realization that her autonomy cannot last and that her death represents the futility of her freedom
(Diederich, 2012). Both the articles agree that Chopin wants her readers to know that marriage is
a constraining ordeal which restricts ones freedoms.
Allen Stein, in his book Women and Autonomy in Kate Chopins Short Fiction, not
only agrees with the above interpretation of The Story of an Hour but also goes on to explain
the reason behind Chopins negative view on marriage. All of Chopins short stories depict
women as being void of freedom, in contrast to men, in a social framework (Stein, 2005). He
writes:
It is not terribly difficult to see where Chopins grim vision of the human struggle for
power and its especially painful repercussions for women might well have begun.
Thomas OFlaherty, Chopins father, was, Emily Toth observes, a humorless, driven,

rather sad man, who became a stern master, not least presumably, to the young woman
of sixteen he married when he was thirty-nine and who became Chopins mother. Chopin
was sent off to boarding school with the Sacred Heart nuns when she was only five.
Chopins mother, widowed by the sudden death of Thomas O Flaherty, never married
again, and her first act as a young widow was to bring her daughter Katie home. Toth
notes that for the rest of her life, Katie would brood over her fathers sudden death, and
what it meant for her mother, and she suggests that one likely result of that brooding was
The Story of an Hour, in which the long-repressed Mrs. Mallard finds herself surprised
by her own joy at the death of her husband and the vistas of freedom it seems to open for
her.
Having experienced the unfair treatment of her mother in her marriage,
Chopin developed a negative view of marriage in her childhood. This view is
portrayed in The Story of an Hour. In the book Close Readings: Analyses of
Short Fiction from Multiple Perspectives, Kate Chopins The Story of an
Hour has been analyzed by various critics. Critic Lara Bridger agrees with
the view that Louises marriage had imposed such strict limitations on the
expression of her deepest desires that a violent release of primal energy is
was inevitable when she learned that Brently is dead (Bridger et. al., 2001).
Critic Barbara Larson analyzes Louises reaction when Chopin says "Into this
she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and
seemed to reach into her soul and notes that almost every word in this
sentence suggests feminine sexuality, especially "sank," "pressed down,"
"her body," "reached into her soul," and "physical exhaustion." The important

point that she makes, however, is that this sexuality is passive and implies
domination (Bridger et. al., 2001).
In his article on the protomodernism aspect of The Story of an Hour, Jeremy Foote
acknowledges that there has been a virtually critical agreement that Louise Mallards marriage
was constricting and the story is an archetype of feminine self-realization and the patriarchy that
is always there to extinguish it (Foote, 2013). His research on the story was extensive enough to
recognize the role of technology in the story. This research made him acknowledge the most
obvious message of the story: marriage is constraining for the wife. According to Joseph
Rosenblum, Chopin regarded contemporary society as degrading to women, who were allotted
limited roles in a male-dominated world. At the end of the story, her husbands return shatters her
hopes. She is again a mere wife, subservient. This sudden reversal, the destruction of her dreams,
kills her. The storys ending is therefore ironic but not tragic because Louise does escape
marriage in the only way now open to her (Rosenblum, 2004). All the literary evidence
mentioned above supports the fact that marriage is shown to be constraining and oppressive for
the wife.
Apart from the evidence presented by the literary reviews, Chopin presents the readers
with hints throughout the story indicating that Louise was facing oppression in her marriage. The
lines of her face "bespoke repression" (Chopin, Paragraph 8) and when she learns of her
husband's death, she knows that there will "be no powerful will bending her" (Chopin, Paragraph
14). There will be no husband who believes he has the "right to impose a private will upon a
fellow creature" (Chopin, Paragraph 14). Chopin also informs her readers that Brently Mallard
was not a bad man. Brently had only ever looked at Louise with love (Chopin, Paragraph 13).

This information implies that even though Brently was not a cruel man by nature, he believed
that it is his right, and perhaps his obligation as a husband, to direct Louise in everything she
does.
Chopin also uses symbolism to convey her message. When Louise sat facing the open
window [in] a comfortable, roomy armchair (Chopin, Paragraph 4) she could see the scene
outside her window. The window symbolizes freedom, which Louise has just gained. The
narrator also pointed out that She could see . . . the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the
new spring life (Chopin, Paragraph 5). Spring is a symbol for new life and growth which Louise
is experiencing after hearing the news of her husbands death. Symbolism is also used in the
describing of the weather outside the open window. Louise can taste the delicious breath of rain
in the air (Chopin, Paragraph 5). Here, water is used as a symbol for washing away the old life
she had and the new life she is prepared to face. At the end of the story, Louise dies of a simple
heart disease (which the doctors think came about as a result of her joy of seeing her husband),
which may be symbolic of the disease of marriage. Much like an affliction, she cannot feel free
unless the agent, her husband, is no longer present. The fact that it affects her heart as opposed to
any other portion of her body shows that her misery from this symbolic disease stems from
something inside of her, not anything external.
Apart from symbolism, Chopin also makes use of emotion to convey her message. When
Josephine tells Louise about the death of Brentley, she is not struck, as many women have
been, by a paralyzed inability to accept the painful sense of loss (Chopin, Paragraph 3). On the
contrary, she is roused from her passivity by an uncontrollable flood of emotion. Accompanying
the news of her husbands death is a monstrous joy that highlights her excitement on finally

being free from her marriage. She now realizes that she has become Free! Body and soul free!
(Chopin, Paragraph 11). Louise is able to grasp this freedom only after locking herself in her
room and after purging her repressed emotions. Because her emotions are no longer bottled, she
attends to the sounds, the scents, the color (Chopin, Paragraph 9) in the natural world, and they
teach her what freedom really means.
Lastly, Chopin also uses irony to further highlight the main theme of the story. At the end
of the story, she uses situational irony to show that Louises marriage to Brentley was actually
constraining her and hurting her: Brentley is alive, enters the house fine and well, and Louise
dies as a result. Chopin further exemplifies this by using dramatic irony in how Louises death is
diagnosed as "joy that kills". The readers know that it was not joy that killed Louise, but the
shock that came over her after the disappointing fact that Brentley was still alive and that her life
was going to continue under the same oppression as before. Chopin might be trying to inform her
readers that one cannot easily escape the tightening hold of marriage, except by death which
gives one complete freedom from all worldly entanglements.
There may be arguments against the claim that marriage is shown in a negative light in
the Story of an Hour. However, throughout the story, I could find no evidence to support this
argument. Some critics might use the description of Brently Mallard as a kind husband who only
ever looked lovingly at his wife to show Louise as a cruel wife. Even though Chopin never
directly paints a negative picture of Brently, she also never directly mentions that Brently did not
oppress her wife. The message embedded within the story is that the social norms were such in
that era that a kind man was forced to assert his wishes, knowingly or unknowingly, upon his

wife. Even if Brently was not cruel by nature, he still restricted Louises freedoms. There is no
evidence in the story to suggest otherwise.
In light of the literary reviews of the Story of an Hour and the evidence provided from
the story itself, I am able to support my claim that the story shows marriage as being oppressive
and constraining for the wife.

Bibliography
Diederich, N. (2012). Sharing Chopin: Teaching "The Story of an Hour" to Specialized
Populations. Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies, 43(2), 116-120.
This source informs us of the authors experience on teaching The Story of an Hour to
sophomores in high schools. The author has extensive knowledge on the views of critics as well
as students on the story. I have used this source to better understand the collective viewpoint of
critics as understood by a teacher.

Evans, R. (2001). Close Readings: Analyses of Short Fiction (pp. 86-112).

This book is a consolidation of various authors analyses on various stories including the Story
of an Hour. It is a collection of different viewpoints on the same story. The topics of several
passages from the short story that were explained include grief, physical exhaustion and class
power structure. I used this to gather similar interpretations on the nature of Louise Mallards
marriage in the story. The critics, including Lara Bridger and Barbara Larson, have agreed on the
claim that the story showed Louises marriage as being constricting and oppressive.

Foote, J. (2013). Speed That Kills: The Role of Technology in Kate Chopin's THE STORY
OF AN HOUR. Explicator, 71(2), 85-89. doi:10.1080/00144940.2013.779222
This source mainly focuses on the role of technology in the Story of an Hour. However, in the
introduction of this source, the author presents the views of other critics on the obvious message
of the story. In order to support my claim, I used the points made by the author in the
introduction of this source where he points out that the critical agreement on the message of the
story is that marriage was shown in a negative light.

Jamil, S. (2009). Emotions in THE STORY OF AN HOUR. The Explicator, 67(3), 215-220.
This source analyses the emotions of the protagonist, Louise Mallard, throughout the Story of
an Hour. It doesnt concentrate on proving an argument of any kind. This was helpful because I
could use the analyses made by the author to show that Louise was indeed being oppressed in her
marriage and that she experienced joy on being free of her husband.

Rosenblum, J. (2004). Masterplots II: Short Story Series (Revised Edition ed., pp. 1-2).
Louisiana: Salem Press.
This book contained information about the themes and plots of various short stories including the
Story of an Hour. The analyses given werent detailed but were brief and crisp. It served as an
extra piece of evidence to support my claim on the views of marriage in the story.

Stein, A. (2005). Introduction. In Women and Autonomy in Kate Chopins Short Fiction (Vol.
45, pp. 2-3). Peter Lang.
This book offered close readings of some thirty stories Chopins most significant short works
the majority of which have never received analytical scrutiny. The common factor among these
were that they portrayed the difficulties women confront as they seek autonomy in a social
framework that typically constrains them whether they are married. Apart from this, it proved
really helpful in giving some background information on the life of Kate Chopin. I could then
use that information as evidence to support my argument that Chopins personal life experiences
gave rise to her negative view on marriage.