Story Of An Hour -character Analysis Essay, Research Paper
Victoria Hubble October 14, 1999
Character Analysis
Essay #4
?The Story of an Hour,? by Kate Chopin is an ironic story because, Louise
Mallard realizes the independence that she gains from her husband?s death. The
moment she realizes this freedom, and is willing to take this new way of life into her
arms, her husband returns, and she dies. Mrs. Mallard has a revelation of all these
liberations she was going to live with, and within minutes, came to realization of her
confinement.
Louise Mallard?s initial reaction to her husband?s death was one that any
normal person would have except it is characterized by the happiness that overcomes
her as the story develops. Although she is upset about the news of her husband?s
death, she comes to the realization of a completely different lifestyle that she has
never known before. Independence or freedom are the major differences between her
life before and her life now. She felt content with her life before, simply because she
didn?t know any different. She always had someone else?s will pushed against her own,
whether it was her father or her husband, she has always had someone to control her
life for her. As she undergoes this incredible emotional breakthrough, a great amount
of weight lifts off her should
others , and at the same time, she realized that she didn?t have to listen to someone
else?s opinions or outlooks on anything.
This new emotional insight is a major turning point in Louise?s life and it is
quickly changed by the trauma of her husband?s return. Mrs. Mallard realizes that
she now has the ability to live her own life. This realization suffers a drastic change
when Brently Mallard, her husband walks in the door. The exorbitant change comes in
when she recognizes that this freedom she has been anticipating is no longer a
reality. She is in extreme shock because she was reborn to a new way of life and it was
stripped away from her immediately once she acknowledged that she had to live her
life with someone else again. She felt like the efforts of her entire transformation of
herself was done all for nothing and she might as well die.
?The Story of an Hour? deals with rebirth, emotional breakthrough, and
extreme shock. The character Louise goes through these emotions in the period of an
hour, as if it were a process. She changes from a woman who is treated like broken
china, to a woman who walks like a goddess. And the irony of it all is, when she has
embraced her freedom and the glory of the years before, her husband returns, and
the shock and disappointment kills her.