Through her work "The Story of an Hour," Kate Chopin is able to portray to her readers the marriage of a couple, the Mallards. In the story, she describes the life of the main character Mrs. Mallard, and the news she receives of her husband's recent death. Although family and friends are concerned that the news will bring harm to Mrs. Mallard's health, Mrs. Mallard spends the long hour coping with the news in her own way. Eventually the news of her husband's false death gets to her which ultimately brings her life to an end. Chopin's story concisely reveals the underlying nature of a seemingly normal, happy marriage through the characters, symbols, and irony.
With her characters, Chopin demonstrates to her readers the true relationship of the Mallards. The inner thoughts of the story's victim, Mrs. Mallard, show evidence of a possible problem with the marriage. Both friends and family of the Mallards are led to believe that the Mallard's marriage is a happy mutual relationship.
Mallard
Kate Chopin in 1894
MallardBreaking the news of her husband's death to Mrs. Mallard is not only hard for her sister, Josephine, but is taken with great care to not harm Mrs. Mallard's weak heart ( Chopin 552). The trouble that Mrs. Mallard's sister has with telling the "sad news" shows that the marriage seems to be content, but other evidence from Mrs. Mallard herself gives the readers the possibility that she is now happy from the departure of her husband (552). Without her husband, she now has the ability to live her life on her own and be completely free to enjoy her own life. Mrs. Mallard tells of her love towards her husband, but continues on to express her new freedom from his death. Although she feels guilty from her new experience of freedom,