"The Story Of An Hour" By Kate Chopin
In the short story "The Story of an Hour", by Kate Chopin, the reader is told a story about a wife who felt she was free after hearing the news of her husband's death. This leads the reader to believe that their marriage was troubled and one without love. You assume that the husband mistreated his wife and that his death was pleasant news to her ears. But when read carefully and thoroughly, the reader will notice that these assumptions are not entirely correct and that there is more meaning to the story than what is just written on paper.
Chopin has many hidden messages in this story, whether they be advertent or inadvertent, that make the reader think outside of just what they are reading. The story is set during the season of spring. This season represents the beginning of life with the blooming of flowers and the revival of the leaves on the trees. When Louis Mallard hears the news of her husband's death from her sister, Josephine, she begins to cry tears of joy. When alone in her room she whispers to herself, "free, free, freeĀ
" (Chopin, 327), which means that she felt held down by her husband and now her life had been renewed with her husband's death.
Another hidden meaning of the story involves the Mallard household itself. In the story all the mentioning of death and sorrowful emotions occurs on the first floor of the house. Louis first hears of her husband's death on the first floor and she is filled with sorrow. When she gets upstairs, however, she is happy and feels relieved that she has been freed of her marriage. While upstairs she doesn't even think of the negative aspects of her marriage, she focuses on the positives things of her husband that she will undoubtedly miss. She never reveals to the reader why she is happy about the news of her husband's death, only telling us that she will miss her husband and remember the good things about him. After all of her positive emotions upstairs, she comes downstairs to the sight of her...
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