Selin Gökçe Güray

Yabancı Diller Eğitimi

İngilizce Öğretmenliği

ANALYSIS OF “STORY OF AN HOUR” BY “KATE CHOPIN”

Plot

The story starts with a woman named Louise Mallard, who received her husband’s death
through a list published in a newspaper. After she gets the news, she feels a deep sense of
sadness at first because she feels very dependent on her husband and cannot imagine a life
without him. However, she embraces freedom in a very short time and is happy by thinking
of it. Suddenly, the doorbell rings, and Louise sees her husband in front of her. As soon as
she learns that her husband is not dead and alive, she gets shocked and dies.

Characters

Louise Mallard: She is the main character of the story. She has a heart-related illness and is
sad after she has just learned of her husband's death, but gradually she feels freedom.

Brently Mallard: He is the husband of the main character. He is supposed to die, however it
is appeared to be alive at the end of the story.

Josephin: She was the sister of Louise, and she tried to give the death kindly to her sister.

Setting

The story takes place at the end of the 19th century at Louise Mallard’s house.

Point of View

The story is told from the third-person singular point of view. The narrator is an omniscient
narrator who transmits the inner world and thoughts of the characters to the readers.

Narrator

The narrator is an omniscient third-person narrator who observes and conveys the events of
the story and the emotions of the characters from the outside.

Conflict
The main conflict of the story is Louise Mallard’s inner conflict between the sadness of her
husband’s death and her sense of freedom. On the one hand Louise is deeply blue due to the
death news however, on the other hand she fill with a deep joy of freedom thanks to her
husband’s death. Also, learning that her husband is not dead moved the conflict to the top.

Theme

The main themes of the story are freedom, marriage, and women’s social status. The sense of
freedom that Louise feels after her husband’s death reflects how marriage suppresses
women’s freedom and their ways to search for freedom. The story also highlights the idea
that marriage can be a jail for women by criticizing social norms.