David Kiang

April 19, 2002

Miss Tiffany L. Ware, Instructor

HCCS-SE Campus

Topic: Character Analysis “The Story of an Hour”

Kate Chopin was a woman ahead of her time. She once wrote: “I would give up

the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I

wouldn’t give myself ”. Freedom of being oneself, freedom from the social constraints

of the conventions of gender role during the Victoria era, are the freedoms that Kate

Chopin addresses. The second is the freedom from temporal world: death

The Victorian period was characterized by many historical changes. It was the

turn of the XIX century and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The

confrontation between the old and the new, the traditional and the modern and the

changing of the lifestyle affected the social norms. The industrial revolution gave more

independence to women, because they could earn wages as factory workers. It also

separated them from the farms and their families.

The Industrial revolution began in the north, however Kate Chopin lived in

Louisiana. The Creole women were very conservative, maybe the most conservative

in the nation. They were totally committed to their husbands and children, and their

chastity did not allow any doubt. The new ideas of the Feminist Movement had not
 Kiang 2

reached the Louisiana society by the time of Kate Chopin. Under the Louisiana Code,

a woman belonged to her husband. Article 1388 established the absolute control of

the male over the family. Article 1124 equated married women with babies and the

mentally ill. Marriage was the goal in every woman’s life. Service to her husband and

her family, her duties. The submission was assumed as a virtue. The only independence

was found in her husband home.

The plot of “The Story of an Hour” is set very likely to the death of her father,

Mr. Thomas O ‘ Flaherty, in 1855 aboard the Pacific Railroad. The train collapsed

on it’s inaugural journey over the Gasconade Bridge. Her mother Eliza was only 27

years old when she heard about the death of her 50-year old husband. Eliza may have

been felt depressed but also liberated after her husband’s death. Kate Chopin may have

been inspired by her mothers real life experience in the posterior writing of “The Story of

an Hour”.

In “The Story of an Hour”, “Mrs. Mallard wept with sudden, wild

abandonment in her sister’s arms”. After that she locked herself in her room because

she wanted to be alone, to find out her true feelings. She realized that she would

live by herself, “Free! Free! Free!” while she feels the freedom outside her window.

She will not have to live under the oppression of Mr. Mallard in the years to come.

“Free! Body and soul free!” She became Louise, herself, her own individuality

not Mrs. Mallard, the wife of Mr. Mallard, but Louise, yes Louise.
 Kiang 3

The irony is that her husband Mr. Mallard was not dead. He didn’t even

know about the train accident. He entered the house and Louise suffered a heart

failure after seeing him. “They said that she had died of heart disease—of the joy

that kills”.

The second is the freedom from the temporal world: death. Mrs. Mallard

found the death as the escape from her misery. She was so oppressed by her husband

that death is a way to find the freedom that she was looking. Death in this story plays

a double role. First, with the supposed dead of Mr. Mallard, Louise Mallard finds a way

to freedom. Second, because Mr. Mallard wasn’t dead, Mrs. Mallard has to die to find

this freedom at least from the temporal word. Like the famous “ To be or not to be”

Hamlet, Mrs. Mallard looked the death as a way to escape from the oppression.

In conclusion, freedoms to be oneself as a woman, from social constraints are

first addressed in “ Story of an Hour” and death is a way to freedom at least

from the temporally world where Mrs. Mallard can be free to be Louise .