Feminism in “The Story of an Hour”
Name: Jeremy Kardash
Course Code: ENG2D - 06
Feminism in “The Story of an Hour”
Like many women around the world, Louise Mallard is married. But Louise is unhappy with her marriage, due to her lack of freedom. This is why she may be better off without her husband, Brently. In “The Story of an Hour”, Kate Chopin tells a short story about Louise and uses symbolism, mood and irony effectively to express the struggle of women.
Kate Chopin uses symbolism in a way that makes things more important than they might first seem. Chopin uses two main symbols that express the struggle of women, the first symbol being the open window. As soon as Louise found out about the supposed death of her husband, she gazed directly out into an open window. From the window she viewed a beautiful spring day with a big storm cloud approaching. As she looked into the near future, or the foreground, she saw the spring as potential new opportunities but as her eyes widened and saw the whole picture she saw a storm cloud threatening to dampen the beautiful spring day and all of her newly acquired dreams. Her freedom was being washed away from the entrance of her husband, Brently, who actually was not dead. Chopin also uses the heart as a symbol. At the beginning of the story Chopin indicates that Louise had heart trouble, physically. But throughout the story it is evident that Louise struggles with heart trouble emotionally. From Louise’s reaction to the death of her husband, it is obvious she is not happy with the way her marriage with Brently was going. The main issue she had with her marriage was her feeling a lack of freedom. This is why when Louise had thought her husband was dead she said: “Free! Body and soul free!” The physical aspect of her heart trouble came only at the very end on the story, when she died of a heart problem. Some would look outside and see just a normal day, or just see a heart condition as a heart condition but Kate Chopin uses these symbols in a way that affect the story in multiple ways.
