Kate Chopin’s story “The Story in an Hour” is about the Louise Mallard, who was able to feel freedom only after the death of her husband. After all, while he was alive, she had to live for him, and only when he died could she feel that her life belonged to her alone again. These shackles of marriage weighed so heavily on Louise that she experienced such happiness and joy, as a result of which her heart could not stand. This story is about the repressive role of marriage in women’s lives in the 19th century.
In “The Story in an Hour”, Chopin shows the social situation that prevailed in America when women were prisoners of their husbands. It is well known that marriages do not always consist of mutual love between two people, and this was a common practice during Chopin’s work. The marriages consisted not only of monetary comfort, social status, recognition, and possible love. It cannot be said that Louise was mistreated in marriage because her husband looked at her with loving eyes (Chopin, 2). Moreover, her first reaction to the sad news was precisely sadness. However, the main character’s name is found only after it is reported that her husband has died. Before that, she was addressed as “she” or “Miss Mallard.” This perfectly emphasizes that she could become herself again only after her husband’s death. Before that, she was a wife, a shadow of her husband. Eventually, the heroine dies when she sees that a mistake has occurred and her husband is alive. Chopin demonstrates literally that her life was taken away from her again.
Thus, “The Story in an Hour” is a very short but at the same time profound story about the social situation in marriages of that time. Chopin demonstrated how social expectations of marriage and domestic responsibility were forms of suppression. Moreover, there is also the idea that a woman’s true personal freedom can only be found in death. Mrs. Mallard finds freedom in the false belief that her husband is dead and dies when confronted with the truth.
Work Cited
Chopin, Kate. The Story in An Hour. Joe Books Ltd, 2018.