The Story of an Hour

“The Story of an Hour” is a famous story by the 19^th century American author Kate Chopin.  Kate Chopin was prominently known for using her stories to express her feminist ideology as you will see in this story. I will provide a brief summary below.

The story is told in third person and narrates an hour in the life of a married woman by the name of Mrs. Mallard who has a kind of heart disease wherein a heart attack can be triggered through any sudden shock . It begins with Mrs. Mallard discovering that her husband had died in a disastrous train crash. The story follows the thoughts and emotions felt by the protagonist. She cries at first, no doubt deeply saddened by the death of her husband, who,  as mentioned by her in the story, she had loved .

This is where the story deviates significantly from the norm. Despite her genuine grief, she recognizes something incredulously alluring. The prospect of her freedom, from this point in time up until her death, dawns on her. Sure, she had loved her husband, but, to quote a line from the story:

“What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being”

In the course of narrating this one hour, Kate Chopin’s feminist ideas come into play. Through usage of expressions of jubilance and overwhelming joy, she frames an alluring picture of the freedom that the protagonist has discovered. The freedom of living for herself. The very existence of this joy contrasts the institution of marriage; it shows that while marriage may be beneficial, its absence can be equally beneficial, albeit for different reasons.

                At this point there is something I feel compelled to add. I find this piece unique as compared to other feminist literature and poetry. While many of the latter consistently employ a male figure to personify the injustices perpetrated by men, this story does not. The woman recognizes her freedom, her opportunities, and her empowerment, all without any ‘man-bashing’.

The responses of her family are very interesting. Mrs. Mallard has locked herself into her room and her family members are knocking on the door, worried that she is traumatised or sick when in fact, she’s revelling in her new-found freedom.

Mrs. Mallard emerges from her room with a victorious sense of freedom, an independence she could never have imagined. As she descends the stairs however, her husband enters the house door. It would appear that he had been far from the scene of the accident and had no clue that there had, in fact, been an accident. Mrs. Mallard let out a piercing cry and fell to the round, her hand clutching her throbbing chest. By the time she reached the hospital, the doctors declared her dead.

The cause of death – joy that kills.

The writer finishes the story by declaring that the doctors have attributed her death to ‘joy that kills’. The very idea, that the woman would have been overjoyed to see her husband, contrasts bleakly with the overpowering joy that the female protagonist experienced prior to her death.

The above irony is Kate Chopin’s testament to a male-dominated society, a society in which the suppression of a woman’s identity through marriage is celebrated, and her liberation is mourned.