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The Story of an Hour

Kate Chopin’s Story of an Hour published in 1984 is a feminist-based piece of literature.

It is a story that describes the reaction of a woman, Louse Mallard, upon loosing her husband in a

car crush. However, there is a plot twist later when she discovers that her husband was in reality

still alive. Kate employs the use of description, intrusion contrast, symbolism and monologue to

pass her message on marriage and feminism to the world. This paper reviews the use of stylistic

features including irony, plot, themes used with emphasis on how, why and to what extent each

device was used.

Authors have often employed the use of stylistic devices in their literary work and Kate

Chopin is no exception. She uses the figurative expression of metaphors to make her story

relevant and captivating to her readers (Chopin, p. 18). To express the extent of emotional

trauma that Louise Mallard experienced when she lost her husband, she compares Mrs. Mallard’s

heartbreak to the storm. This description shows the intensity of the heartbreak since a storm is a

description of something violent, terrifying, shocking as well as an unexpected shocking invasion

(Chopin, p. 13). She is known to have some heart complications and therefore it is necessary for

Richard, Mr. Mallard’s friend who is first to receive news concerning the demise, to be

accompanied by Josephine, Mrs. Mallard’s sister as they break the news about the death of her

husband (Chopin, p.14). The imagery of the storm best fits her reaction.
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The protagonist, Mrs. Mallard is used to portray a woman and a marriage institution.

Suspense is felt when a plan and decision is made on how to break shocking news to a woman

with a heart disease (Gilman, p. 14). Conflict ensues from Mrs. Mallard’s reaction that is very

sad and heartbreaking but is later countered by her sudden realization that despite her husband’s

death, she sees freedom offered to her for the rest of her life. At first, she is shocked and sad but

then after pondering on the effects of her husband’s death her strength is restored.

During her moments of contemplation, she stares blankly at the open window. Her sight

moves beyond the open window to an open square right after her house that is filled with trees

beautifully sprouted with the spring of life. The pleasant smell of the rain fills the air and much

further a peddler appears to be crying for some reason. She listens faintly to a song from a

distance and the chirping of countless of eaves. Her sight wonders off to the clear blue sky with

distinct piled clouds facing directly towards her house. All these marvelous sights inform her

decision to look on the bright side. The open window is therefore used as a symbol of new

opportunities and possibilities which she refers to as a new spring of life. She comes to a painful

awareness of the fact that she could not restore her husband’s life while at the same time deep

down she feels that she has been freed from living for another person.

Kate Chopin uses her literature to bring out aspects of a marriage institution where the

woman is suppressed. Mrs. Mallard’s marriage had mixed feelings. Her husband loved her but

not to her level of expectation. This made it easier for her to come to terms with her husband’s

death. She was saddened by his death and not from the thought of living without him. She loved

her husband but only sometimes. Mrs. Mallard’s level of heartbreak could not be compared to

her level of joy and peace that she anticipated from living without her husband. This reveals how

women suffer in silence and in the shadow of outward appearances like wealth.
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Perhaps, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper is perfect literary piece

similar to Kate Chopin’s story. This is because both stories were written and published around

the same period and they both challenge the aspects of over-submissiveness of women in

marriages using tragic endings. Louise Mallard, in The Story of an Hour, is portrayed as a

woman who has been helplessly confined in a cage which in this case is her marriage. Her

outward emotion is that of immense sadness but deep down she has joy and hope from seeing her

life in the freedom that she has for a long time deeply longed for (Doepke & Tertilt, p. 32). Kate

saw it necessary to write her story in third-person because a narrator is needed to make Louise

sympathetic and not uncaring as she appears to be.

There is therefore a development of Mrs. Mallard’s character throughout the story. The

values that make up who she is. A woman who finally gets the freedom that she has longed for

and then for the second time being denied the freedom (Doepke & Tertilt, p. 32). This we see in

the final scene when she comes to another shocking discovery that her husband, Brently Mallard,

was still alive (Doepke & Tertilt, p. 32). It is quite clear that her shock was not derived from the

joy of seeing her husband again but rather from the stress of losing her newfound freedom and

this causes her death. This ironical because of the contrast that author brings up in her statement

that she died of heart disease, of the joy that kills.

It was Mrs. Mallards inability to handle the sudden changes in her emotions that costed

her life. Mr. Mallard on the other hand is left mourning the wife he never took seriously (Iwen, p.

12). The irony in the state that his very presence killed his wife is difficult to comprehend (Iwen,

p. 7). He has to face the consequence of taking her for granted because the oppressor faces

greater loss than the victim.

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Works Cited

Chopin, Kate. The story of an hour. Joe Books Ltd, 2018.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The yellow wallpaper. Project Gutenberg, 1999.

Doepke, Matthias, and Michele Tertilt. "Women's Liberation: What's in it for Men?." The

Quarterly Journal of Economics124.4 (2009): 1541-1591.

Iwen, Michelle. "Women writers and the pathologizing of gender in 18th-century English mad-

discourse." Literature and Medicine I: Women in the Medical Profession (2009): 62.