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“The Story of an Hour”

The perception that lives a problem that requires a solution is widely believed. The daily

encounters in life justify the perception. In the wake of many problems to be solved, man has

focused on finding solutions to the problems. The happiness in life has turned to be the absence

of the common challenges in life. For instance, if one is on a journey and find all the way to the

destination safely, the happiness is focused on the absence of a tragedy while on the journey.

However, with an encounter of an accident on the way, the unhappiness begins to fill the heart.

As a result, the human heart has oriented to the provision of solutions. The fear of facing more

challenges forces a man to seek for an external association to provide comfort and consolation.

Consequently, human activity is streamlined into communal existence, as opposed to individual

existence. For this reason, man will always do and associate with the activities and lives of

others. Nevertheless, Kate in “The Story of an Hour” gives the encounter that is of a contrary

opinion to the social norms of life.

Mrs. Mallard decides to live against the social norms. However, she develops a heart

problem. The heart problem symbolizes her unhappiness. She had the desire to live her life

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alone. On receiving the news about her husband’s death, she reacts contrary to the conventional

norms (Berkove, p2). Although she wept on hearing the news, that only lasted for a while. It was

expected that the sorrow would force her into seeking company from her friends and family.

Instead, she locks herself into a lonely room. Mrs. Mallard would later feel free in a solitary

encounter with the world. Her unhappiness results from the news that contradicted her husband’s

death. She had defined her joy and freedom in solitude, due to the unhappiness in marriage. She

had thus wished to get freedom.

Mrs. Mallard’s heart trouble is psychological. According to Kate Chopin, Mrs. Mallard’s

heart trouble was more rooted in her feelings and idea rather than the functionality of the heart or

any organ related. To justify her psychological condition, the doctors could not identify any

physical problem. However, it was suggested that she had lost joy (Berkove, p2). In normal

circumstances, when one is sorrowful, he/she desires company for comfort and encouragement.

For Mrs. Mallard, her desire to be lonely implied that in her marriage, she had lost the desire for

joy and happiness, hence, could not identify the need to be with others in times of tragedy.

Nature imagery is depicted in when Mrs. Mallard received the information about her

husband’s death during the spring season. Spring is a relieve season in the tropical environments.

During spring, the temperatures that preceded winter begin to rise. As a result, the frost covering

the land begins to melt away, making it possible for movement from one point to another.

Similarly, the snow disappears to allow free movement across the environment. The melting of

frost and snow minimizes the chances of severity. The death of Mrs. Mallard’s husband was

imagery of relieving to Mrs. Mallard, an indication of a new beginning to the lonely life she had

desired. Regarding “The Story of an Hour,” Mrs. Mallard would foretell many years to come for

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her to spend alone. She would open her arms and embrace them (Kate, p4). This implied that the

news about her husband’s death would relieve her from the unhappiness in her marriage.

Kate Chopin asserts that Mrs. Mallard had to find her path, a path towards death. She

would feel her significance in being an individual, with sole responsibility for her life than to be

a woman. Her individuality signified security and absence of guilt. The feeling was so strong that

her deviation from the real world was justified in her actions. All that mattered was her own life.

It was however ironical that the news of death would turn into her personality. With the

encounter of the second news that her husband had not died, her death becomes a psychological

reality. She realized that her heart could not be free as before. Moreover, the many years she had

envisioned alone were no more. She would rather die than face reality as this feeling marked the

beginning of her death.

The psychological trauma of her death exists in the physical life of her husband. The

news about her husband’s death created a conflict between her life and death. Mrs. Mallard lived

her freedom in the death of her husband but succumbed to death in his life. According to Kate

Chopin, the definition of life and death to Mrs. Mallard was determined by the marriage life with

her husband. Getting the freedom and seeking for her space outlined the unhappiness in their

marriage. The unhappiness in their marriage had reached the turning point, beyond which one of

them had to die to allow the existence of the other. On hearing of her husband had not died, her

heart turns towards her death.

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Work cited

Berkove, Lawrence I. “Fatal Self-Assertion in Kate Chopin's ‘The Story of an Hour.’” American

Literary Realism, vol. 32, no. 2, 2000, pp. 152–158. JSTOR, JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/27746974.

Chopin, Kate. The story of an hour. Blackstone Audio, 2013.

Chopin, Kate. "The story of an hour." (2018).

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