Disappointment in Kate Chopins Story of an Hour Essay -- Story Hour e

Disappointment in The Story of an Hour      Ã‚   "The Story of an Hour" is a short story in which Kate Chopin, the author, presents an often unheard of view of marriage. Published in the late eighteen hundreds, the oppressive nature of marriage in "The Story of an Hour" may well be a reflection of, though not exclusive to, that era. Mrs. Louise Mallard, Chopin's main character, experiences the exhilaration of freedom rather than the desolation of loneliness after she learns of her husband's death. Later, when Mrs. Mallard learns that her husband, Brently, still lives, she know that all hope of freedom is gone. The crushing disappointment kills Mrs. Mallard.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Though Chopin relates Mrs. Mallard's story, she does not do so in first person. Chopin reveals the story through a narrator's voice. The narrator is not simply an observer, however. The narrator knows, for example, that Mrs. Mallard, for the most part, did not love her husband (paragraph 15). It is obvious that the narrator knows more than can be physically observed. Chopin, however, never tells the reader what Mrs. Mallard is feeling. Instead, the reader must look into Mrs. Mallard's actions and words in order to understand what Mrs. Mallard feels.      Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Mrs. Mallard is held back in her marriage. The lines of her face "bespoke repression" (paragraph 8). When Mrs. Mallard learns of her husband's death, she knows that there will "be no powerful will bending her" (paragraph 14). There will be no husband who believes he has the "right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature" (paragraph 14). Mrs. Mallard acknowledges that her husband loved her.... ... life. When Brently walks in the door, though, Mrs. Mallard knows that she will have to spend the rest of her life as no more than his wife, just as she had been. She knows that she will never be free. This is too much for Mrs. Mallard to handle. Life had been grim before, with her looking forward to the years ahead "with a shudder" (paragraph 19). Now that Mrs. Mallard has tasted what life might have been like without her husband, the idea of resuming her former life is unbearably grim. When Mrs. Mallard sees that her husband still lives, she dies, killed by the disappointment of losing everything she so recently thought she had gained.    Work Cited Chopin, Kate.   "The Story of an Hour."   The Heath Anthology of American Literature.   Ed. Paul Lauter, et al. 2nd ed. Vol. 2.   Lexington:   Heath, 1994.   644-46.