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An Explication of "The Story of an Hour" In The Story of an HourKate Chopin expresses the mixed emotions of repression in a "loving relationship" women of her time felt about marriage. Within the first sentence, you are informed that Mrs. Mallard had an affliction of the heart and, that "great care was taken" to inform her of her husbands death with "veiled hints that revealed in half concealing". This is paradoxical how can something be revealed and concealed at the same time? The statement can however describe Mrs. Mallards reaction she is mournful of her husbands death but also joyful that she is now her own person. This is also shown by the fact that after her husband's death she is no longer referred to as Mrs. Mallard but by her first name Louis.

Louis retreats to her room alone and looks out the window its spring and a "delicious breath of rain was in the air".

Kate Chopin in 1894

Photoportrait of writer Kate Chopin

English: Underwater photograph of a woman plunging...

Using a positive tone while describing the setting reinforcing that the event of her husband's death is also positive, it is not the usually gloomy setting often seen in sad stories. Louis also seems to be noting every detail of the day as if it is something she always wants to remember also showing that her husbands death is a good thing. While sitting in her room crying she begins to become aware of the fact that, she is not sad. She tries "to beat it back with her will" until she releases her feelings of joy crying out that she is free. "Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body" she no longer seems ill.

. This is the point in the story that there is no denying that Louis is "monstrously joyful".

This is followed with the fact that she realizes she will cry again when she sees "the kind, tender hands folded in death" this shows that she did not have a bad or hateful marriage. She is "joyful not because the man is dead but because she is "Free! Body and soul free". She then leaves; her room carrying herself "like a goddess of victory" she has one the fight from her husband's control. As she walks down the stairs the front door opens, her husband appears, and Louis now referred to as "his wife" dies. The change in how Louis is referred to indicates her husband's control and the loss of her identity. The doctor ironically says that she died "of a joy that kills."

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Writer Kate Chopin and her sons Frederick, George,...