| < HEIGHT=200 WIDTH=5> | "The Story of an Hour": Student Responses, 1996
Students of Ann Woodlief, Virginia Republic University
When I first began reading "The Story of an Hour," Mrs. Mallard seemed to me an old woman and as we are told in the very first line, �affected with a heart trouble.� I was surprised in the eighth paragraph when Chopin tells us that "She was immature," but even more interesting to me that she is described every bit having �a fair, at-home face, whose lines bespoke repression� which depicts her equally being old for her age. The clarification of this repression is backed up when Chopin gives us the reason for Mrs. Mallard�s �monstrous joy� which reads thus �There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they accept a right to impose a private volition upon a fellow-animal.� Afterward reading through this story the first time, I had many questions and many conclusions. For instance, it seems as if Chopin is showing united states of america a social situation of the times with the woman as prisoner of her hubby. It is common knowledge that marriages are non ever about mutual love between 2 people and during the time that Chopin was writing, this was more ofttimes the instance. Wedlock was equally much almost monetary condolement, social status and acceptance as it was about possible love. In that location are no children mentioned in this story which makes me wonder if at that place was a sexual relationship between the Mallards. It seems from the description that Mrs. Mallard has been trapped in this union for a long time even though we know she is young. How young is she? Even though I say she is trapped, exercise non misunderstand me: I practise not think this spousal relationship is arranged, instead that she has been coerced past her order to marry despite what she may want to exercise in her heart and soul. I believe she does dearest her married man, just it is possible to love a man and not be married to him. This was non her example; if she were able (meaning a man would agree with her decision) and she did engage in a loving relationship with a man who was not her husband, she would have certainly been looked down upon. Is her centre status purely concrete or is it also psychological and emotional? We know the stereotypes, as Chopin did, that women are hysterical, timid, weak, irrational. Could it be that her heart condition is created by those tip-toeing around her in conjunction with her ain emotional weaknesses? I find it interesting that her first name is only told to u.s.a. after she hears of her husband�southward decease and when she feels the well-nigh free. Before this point she is referred to as Mrs. Mallard or �she,� and after this point when her husband returns abode, she is referred to as �wife.� Chopin is pointing to something very interesting here which leads me back to the title of adult female every bit �wife.� When Louise marries Bently she becomes Mrs. Mallard; she loses her identity and assumes a new and strange one. While it seems very normal and average for a wife to assume her husband�s name in marriage and in that time, to put it harshly, get the holding of him, it cannot be ignored that a certain part of the self is lost. This adult female is very in melody with this loss and fifty-fifty though her dearest for her married man keeps her from information technology, the freedom she feels when she thinks he is dead becomes unavoidable and enjoyable. Chopin wrote the story and has given u.s.a. a narrator who, if information technology is not Chopin personally, I believe to still be female. The descriptions and insight nosotros are given into the character of Louise come from someone who understands her situation and is forgiving. Nosotros see Louise as she finds happiness out of her husband�s death and even so, by the narration, we meet her struggle with guilt and overcome it. From the female person perspective, it could exist argued that her death was really an ultimate freedom from her unhappy marriage. If we assume that the narrator is male, could it be that her decease was a punishment for her happiness at the death of her husband? It is not as farfetched equally information technology seems and raises many more questions as to the goal this story sets out to achieve. Kristene B. |  | | �The Story of an Hour� at first reminded me of �A Very Short Story� in the way that it leaves out details that that the reader needs to make full in the gaps and easily sympathize the plot of the story. Information technology�s this �Swiss cheese� consequence that makes the story then interesting; past assuasive the reader to �plug in� his/her own details the story takes on varied connotations. An example of this is the starting time paragraph where the reader gets the impression that this woman is going to be extremely upset that her married man has died in a train accident. The people closest to her have gone to smashing lengths to cushion the blow of her married man�s decease; however, nosotros are not given any details every bit to the relationship they had in the by or any relevant information. By doing this the author allows the reader to form his/her ain false estimation of how this woman is going to react. We see this technique used early on into the story and we, as readers, are strung along until we hear the woman utter the words �free, free, costless� which actually throws the reader off the track he/she expected to follow. The remainder of the narrative begins to twist the story to the verbal opposite of what the reader was waiting to have happen. We find a adult female who instead of being upset and heart-broken over her hubby's decease is experiencing complete joy over the death of some other human being. Which, of course, now gives us the impression that she has been mistreated in this human relationship and that, peradventure, this decease is for the best. All this makes the reader justify the style the woman reacted, simply in the end it's Mrs. Mallard who dies upon seeing her husband alive and well. This ending definitely conjures up some questions that are difficult to respond. Ron B. | | | | This was a bully story. I similar Chopin even though she is an ardent feminist. Through the first read several things stood out. Starting time you will detect how the woman of the story is merely referred to as Mrs. Mallard--an appendage of Brently Mallard---then when she is free she is referred to as Louise, her start name. Chopin is trying to say that marriage represses women and "bends the will." Even if union does bend the will Brently Mallard was however a good man, and his face up never looked upon her with annihilation but dearest. She knows that this homo loved her, but that is not enough for her to experience any love for him. Chopin does not seem to think that a homo�southward plans and intentions are bent for a relationship. Personally, I have never seen a working relationship that was totally ane-sided. It is keen that such a brusque little story could raise so many questions almost the nature of relationships and what they mean to a woman similar Chopin. She considers whatever intention that bends the will a law-breaking, even if it is kind. There could be a k years of philosophical debate on that one point. In the mode of characters I think Richards was an interesting graphic symbol. His role seems so small, perhaps intentionally and so. Chopin is trying to show that women can go along only fine without having men interfere. The major theme of the story represents a disdain for the way that women are treated in some relationships, and to a certain extent in social club equally well. It is difficult for a male person to requite physical examples of a female's place in order having never dealt with that stereotype. The late eighteen hundreds were a crude time for women and there weren�t the options, like divorce, that are now available to women. Nevertheless in this story at that place is then much repression. Yous would think that this woman had been locked in a basement and fed bugs by Brently. Travis C. | | | | This is the story of a woman who finds out her hubby has died in a train wreck. She reacts with sadness at first, but then realizes in a rush of emotion & relief that she is �Costless! Body and soul costless!� She views the world with a fresh outlook--i where she will exist her ain person, answering only to herself. She is ready to begin this new life when her husband--who evidently wasn�t on the railroad train after all--comes dwelling house. The adult female (Louise) dies from center failure on the spot. I loved this little story--it takes a couple of twists and turns that makes the ending ironic and unobvious. The year the story was written (1894) is included, and this adds involvement to the content of the story. The fact that Louise recognizes her oppression from the male-dominated society of the time is interesting to me. For some reason (I don�t know why) I oasis�t read much work in which a woman of the time catamenia speaks of feeling that a long life with her husband is undesirable. But when she realizes her hubby is dead, Louise�s view of a long life changes from dread to promise. Louise is obviously the character of interest--through her nosotros run into the social repression that women felt at the time. Louise represents all women of the time. They were locked into marriages that were probably loving--at least Louise says her hubby �never looked at her save with dear�--but were oppressive in their treatment of women. The language of the story does a skilful chore at conveying the emotions and feelings of the characters. Although Louise represents all women, she is different. Being told of Brently�southward (her husband) death, she �did not take the news as many women have.� The choice of many is interesting. Information technology shows that many women accustomed (perhaps blindly) the situation of being controlled in their lives by their husbands. Afterward being told the news of his death, Louise goes to her room and looks out the window. The language here foreshadows the ironic happiness that she feels at beingness ready free. Instead of being gloomy and dark (the way weather is unremarkably symbolized at the mention of death) the sky shows patches of blue (from betwixt white, not blackness) clouds; birds are singing and there is a �delicious breath of rain� in the air. I tin can�t help but call back that when Louise�s sis is calling to her through the door--�open the door--you will brand yourself sick�--that she would believe Louise had made herself ill with all the talk of freedom. When she finally opens the door and walks out �similar a goddess of Victory� I would think that her sister would observe and wonder why. When Brently returns, Louise drops dead. We know that she had a weak heart--information technology was explained that the train accident was explained carefully in guild to forbid an agin reaction--and the doctors assume that she died at his sight from the �joy� of seeing him. �The joy that kills� they called it. Those doctors, undoubtedly men, were unwittingly describing Louise�s union too. Mark D. | | | | Chopin describes for united states of america here a story of cracking irony. She introduces to the states Mrs. Mallard; nosotros know she is a woman with a heart condition and that she is unaware of her married man�s death. Nosotros then run across her sister, Josephine, who is reluctant to be the bearer of bad news. And also her husband�s friend Richards, whose significance in the story seems very ambiguous to me. We learn that in that location has been an accident, a railroad disaster, and that Mrs. Mallard�s husband, Brently, was deemed �killed.� There had been two telegrams affirming this, thus eliminating the possibility of an error. She immediately begins to grieve with �wild abandonment,� presently later on she seeks solitude. In her solitude, we find her to be acutely aware of her environs and her senses, nearly as if a dark cloud has been lifted from her soul and she can now alive life to its fullest potential. For moments, we tin see through her eyes, feel her chest heaving and hear the birds chirping. She feels something that she has forgotten she could feel. She is feeling the clouds being lifted from her soul, she is illuminated, she is free. She is overwhelmed with freedom, opening upwardly her arms to welcome it, letting information technology envelope her body and her soul. She remembers her husband with kind memories, memories of time, memories that are now of the past. She is in the nowadays and she is free! Her sister is concerned with her solitude and inquires of her well being. Nosotros learn that her proper name is Louise; she is no longer Mrs. Mallard, she is Louise, she has her own identity considering she is costless. She is reveling in her freedom, thinking of her liberty today and tomorrow, longing to have a lengthy life of her own. She opens the door to her sister with a sparkle in her center and a new sense of herself. They descend the staircase together, meeting Richards at the bottom. Someone is opening the door. Information technology�s Brently Mallard, unharmed and completely composed, unaware of the transformation that has occured with his absence. We hear a scream from Josephine and see Richards attempt to conceal the living expressionless from the view of the heart patient. But it is as well tardily. She is dead. Mrs. Mallard�s heart stopped. Her life stopped. She had everything and nothing all in the same moment. This is a wonderful story, so well written and descriptive that we tin can be Mrs. Mallard. The omniscience of the narrator allows u.s. this. We tin can see through her eyes, breathe through her lungs. Nosotros want what she desires. This makes the story. The setting is perfect. She ascends the staircase to freedom, everything changes at the top of the stairs. We descend the staircase with her and everything is taken away. She dies of the joy that kills, irony to the end. Magnificent!
| | | | This short story grabbed my attending from the moment I finished the get-go judgement to the end of the story. During the kickoff few paragraphs I idea that she was very depressed and saddened from hearing virtually her husbands death. Of course as soon as she whispers the words �costless, free, free!� I knew that she felt happy nigh her married man�s expiry. I notice that no 1 else knew of these feelings of antipathy for married man merely herself, or she would not take kept these feelings inside of herself. In the 5th paragraph, after simply being told of her married man'southward decease, she is very descriptive of everything that she sees at that moment, as if she wants to call up every detail of this moment. Just why would one betoken out �delicious breath of rain,� �notes of a distant vocal,� and �sparrows were twittering in the eaves� at the time of their spouse's expiry? When I retrieve of these things that she is describing they are happy scenes, scenes of serenity. This was my first inkling that there was more than going on in this story than only someone who lost her husband. Throughout the story you get the feeling from the wife that she was probably controlled past her married man and that their matrimony was not a happy one at all. �The kind, tender hands folded in expiry�; this statement shocked me at outset when I read it. Because I didn�t get the impression from her other comments that he was a kind and tender human, every bit a matter of fact I thought the verbal opposite of him. But her side by side argument--�... the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and grayness and dead�--this was more than of how I pictured this man to exist. The words that she uses to describe him are very stiff-- �fixed,� �gray,� �dead�--these words are very harsh. It was in the next couple paragraphs of her describing her liberty that I began to feel very happy for her that he was out of her life. I think that information technology was very ironic for them to use the word �joy� in the concluding sentence of this story, because it was actual joy that she felt when she realized her married man was dead, and pain so great that killed her when she saw him walk through the door. Shajuana I. | | | | The first time I encountered this story, it was read aloud to me in a class that I took this autumn. I thought it was most unusual, and I am glad I have the opportunity to read it now. The story has many surprises, twists and turns, and in the stop I had well-nigh forgotten the poor dead hubby, as I was happy for Mrs. Mallard�s release from such an unhappy being. The first words that struck me every bit wonderful in this story were in lines three and 4: �veiled hints that revealed in one-half concealing.� What a beautiful mode to depict breaking bad news. The words �veiled� and �concealing� are used in a wonderful way in the same sentence. I also like the description of the �storm of grief� Mrs. Mallard experiences. Weeping with �sudden, wild abandonment� is such an apt description of this emotion. So far I accept not suspected that there is anything amiss with Mrs. Mallard�s reaction to the news of her husband�s death. After all, each and every man existence has an intense range of emotions that are neither right or wrong--they simply belong to that particular individual. I also found nothing suspect in Mrs. Mallard retreating to her room--also perfectly understandable. Here, however, alone in the privacy of her room, is where the story started to turn for me.The description of what she saw when looking out her bedroom window hit me as odd--I remember times in my own life when overwhelming grief or shock has seized me. Zero in the world looks right--certainly not happy or pleasant. All the same, there were �copse that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The succulent breath of rain . . . sparrows . . . patches of bue sky . . . � These things tell me that she is seeing her life equally at present having a new look, and information technology seems to parallel the fresh, new, earthy and upbeat sights out of her bedroom window. I similar the description of her emotional release when she sat �with her head thrown dorsum upon the cushion of the chair . . . � The sob described hither really indicated emotional intensity--was she crying for joy, albeit guilty joy? �There was something coming to her....� this passage almost says �fasten your seatbelts, readers.� Mrs. Mallard has succeeded in gaining my sympathy hither, as she is definitely resisting her feelings--feelings that are coming upon her like a tidal moving ridge. I experience that she is really a decent, moral adult female and wants to do the right thing-- she wants to accept THE Right GRIEF REACTION. Finally she accepts this reaction as being true--subsequently all information technology has come upon her then powerfully, how could it be annihilation but an honest feeling? It was refreshing to meet that her reasons for feeling this style were not considering she was an abused and mistreated married woman--not fifty-fifty because she hated her husband (I think she had tender feelings for him): she merely wanted fourth dimension to herself! Go MRS. MALLARD! I take the feeling that Mr. and Mrs. Mallard had been married a while, and that she had felt �bound� by the restrictions of existence in a relationship and this was an �out� that was dropped into her lap, and so she�due south gonna run with information technology. Later all, she didn�t kill the man--it was Divine Intervention! The terminal line of paragraph 14 is �A kind intention or a cruel intention fabricated the act seem no less a criminal offense as she looked upon information technology in that brief moment of illumination.� This says that it doesn�t matter that her husband probably didn�t intend to be so controlling and needy--but the effect upon her was the aforementioned. I relate to this story non in that I am a widow, but I have been divorced for five years after ten years of spousal relationship. I too reacted with grief when my spousal relationship ended, and I went through an incredible range of emotions. NOW, however, I revel in my freedom and independence. Not that I had a horrible union, only I did have to be part of a �couple� and at that place are responsibilities that go on with that which practise infringe upon one�s freedom to establish her ain identity. I was actually sorry that Mrs. Mallard did not get the chance to practise this. She was pond in it--she was in overdrive imagining the possibilities about being �free, gratis, gratuitous!� I don�t call up she felt guilty nearly it, nor should she have. She had loved him, nevertheless what could dearest have do practice with the feeling she was having now? So what if she loved him--he was expressionless but she was alive as she�d never been before . . . maybe even on the road so wrapped up in this fantasy, planning the residuum of her life without her �ball and chain,� that when she saw this �ghost� walk through the front door, information technology striking her x times harder than it might have had she not been adrift in her joy of being �suddenly single.� This likewise tells me that both Mr. and Mrs. Mallard must take been older people--there was a lot of history between them, a lot of years, and I imagine that her eye might accept withstood the shock had she been a bit younger. [Afterward response, same person (the next semester in a women writers class)]: I understand and at times tend to agree with the argument that the author�due south biographical information should stand up autonomously from the piece of work itself. In the example of Chopin, even so, I do find information technology necessary, perhaps imperative, to comprise her life experience into the meaning I assemble from her work. I believe the events in her life profoundly influenced her writing--from her father�s death in a railroad accident, when she was five years sometime, to the time afterward the death of her own hubby. Chopin died young (44), all the same she had twelve years of married life and twelve years of widowhood packed into those forty-four years. I find that interesting, and I feel it gave her a fair perspective of life as the �other half� in a spousal relationship, and life as a adult female lone. Chopin was another of the �pioneer feminists,� daring to write that women could actually exist, thrive, sans a homo. She is credited with having the nerve to explore the sexual, emotional, and intellectual needs, or the very existence of these needs of women. That she had the fortitude to write about these �taboo� issues with corking integrity in a time when women could simply fantasize virtually equality, etc. is inspiring. Mrs. Mallard�s heart trouble is surely 2-fold--no doubtfulness a physical defect exists, possibly exaggerated emotional strain--heart trouble, the intangible variety, unhappiness, misery, the sad land of 1�southward lot in life. Mrs. Mallard�s heart trouble may have been psychological as well as biological--one can literally brand oneself ill from worry, depression, etc. People exercise die of a broken heart. Mrs. Mallard �did not hear� the story as other women might--this shows how one-dimensional, clone-similar women of Mrs. Mallard�southward time were: in that location was an expected, acceptable emotional response for every life situation. Chopin makes an interesting commentary here nigh the necessity for women to express themselves as individuals--in times of joy, grief. I believe there was fifty-fifty a prescribed manner in which women were immune to �swoon�--not a driblet-expressionless faint, just a boring, feminine form of collapse. Lynda R.
| | | | The things that I marked in the story were the references to Mrs. Mallard�s centre condition. The very first paragraph informs the reader of her eye trouble, and how her loved ones were then careful and cautious while breaking the news to her of her husband�s death. In paragraph xi, where Mrs. Mallard cries out �free, free, gratuitous!� her heart status is no longer an issue (to herself) since her husband is expressionless. Her body is �warmed and relaxed.� At the end of the story, I constitute it ironic how Mrs. Mallard�due south loved ones took spontaneous and startling means to protect her from the realization that her hubby was indeed alive. They took piddling intendance and caution regarding her delicate heart condition. I thought these portions of the text were significant because in that location was some reference to Mrs. Mallard�s heart condition throughout the text. Maybe I missed the answers to these questions within the text, but I hope not. Why did Mrs. Mallard dislike her married man so much, that she could rejoice and feel reborn in his decease? I guess that my reading experience could be categorized as emotional. In the starting time few paragraphs, my feelings were those of sympathy and compassion for the sickly wife who just lost her hubby. Effectually the eighth paragraph I experienced a piffling confusion, �Is she happy that her husband is expressionless?� At the eleventh paragraph I felt relief along with Mrs. Mallard. I felt her freedom. At the beginning of the adjacent to the last paragraph, I felt nervous, anticipating the worst for Mrs. Mallard, that it would be her hubby opening the door. I could feel the disappointment when the person opening the door was Mr. Mallard. After my start reading of the text, I thought of a character in a very pop novel, Celie of Alice Walker�s The Colour Purple. When Celie was young her male parent impregnated her and abused her. When he died, he left her his land and his house. Celie mourned for the benefit of those around her, but when they were gone and she was in the driveway of that business firm, she smiled and danced for joy. This is quite similar to the reactions of Mrs. Mallard. Monique M.
| | | | My �first� response to this story is �I like it.� That is because it is not my starting time fourth dimension reading it. The first time I read this story I was shocked by the catastrophe and disappointed with her view of marriage. At the time of my first reading of this story, I was newly married and �loftier on love� then to speak. Therefore, I couldn�t possibly believe that someone could look at beloved and matrimony in such a negative light. On reading the story this time around I meet a much more than positive side to the story. I probably as well see it a piddling more considerately at present. There are many signs of life in the story that correspond a re-nascence of this young woman. Prior to her husband'southward death she dreaded each day and was �pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her torso.� Now that he is expressionless she sees the potential for life (her life) with phrases similar �new spring life, breath of rain, and endless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.� Well-nigh of the story deals with her quick accepance of her husband's death and her quick acceptance of the new possibilities for her own life and soul. The title of the story would seem to reinforce this idea of quick acceptance. It indicates that her of import transition took identify within 1 short hour. Normally people have months to fully come up to terms with the death of a family unit member. Mrs. Mallard, nonetheless, is quick to put it all into perspective. I think the location she has chosen to bargain with this transition is important. She is in her bedroom in a comfortable armchair, which would seem to indicate she felt safe hither. She seems to have institute a remedy to life, which is her hubby's expiry. The ending this time around is more ironic than shocking. She died considering her potential for unhappiness was still alive (her husband). Jacqueline 1000.
| | | | This story is both humorous and is valuable in a historical perspective. It is first a commentary on the feelings that a woman trapped into matrimony during this fourth dimension period may accept experienced. Marriage may accept seemed to be an interminable �trap� and the but �honorable� manner out for a adult female may accept been through decease of her hubby. This story is ironic in that the narrator'southward death is attributed to being overcome with great joy, when in fact she died of a combination of shock and disapointment. I liked this story, and I think that despite the time that the story was written, it is very easy to chronicle to. It besides presents the way death can encourage many different feelings at once. The narrator admits that she volition probably miss her hubby, but she can also run into the years of liberty stretching into the time to come. Sunita R.
| | | | I accept read this story before so my beginning reading is actually a 2d or third reading. If I retrieve correctly my beginning response to it was amusement at the irony of the whole matter. I can understand how a woman can feel gratis from the husband that she has been with for a long time. He wasn�t bad to her, but all she was known equally was Mrs. Mallard. I noticed that everyone had a first name at the start of the story except for Mrs. Mallard. It was non until her married man'due south supposed decease that nosotros detect out her name is Louise. Information technology�s like a spiritual freeing of the woman that was caged behind the human. Obviously she felt free because she said it over and over. �And however she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did information technology matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of cocky-assertion which she of a sudden recognized as the strongest impulse of her existence! 'Free! Body and soul costless!' she kept whispering.� There were sure words that I saw that lent themselves to the mood of the story. �She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room lone. She would have no one follow her.� The storm of grief that overcame her eventually led to �a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.� I think that everyone has experienced the feeling of being totally emotionally tuckered later dealing with something that was probably too much to handle in the offset place. Afterward you relax for a bit, there is a peaceful calm that slowly takes over your body and you feel totally at ease. At to the lowest degree I do. I think the mere fact that the situation is over lends itself to the feeling of liberty and the feeling that a terrible burden has been lifted off your shoulders. For Louise, beingness Mrs. Brently Mallard was a brunt. Many women feel oppressed and overshadowed by their husbands. Information technology is not necessarily something that the husband has done, information technology is just the personality of the woman who cannot be caged. Her tempest of grief turned at-home and suddenly �Her fancy was running riot forth those days ahead of her. Leap days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.� The blueish sky peeked through the storm and turned into the longing for days filled with sunshine and light. She wanted to live long and prosper on her own when just the twenty-four hours before she didn�t actually want to prolong her life. I tin throw some Emerson in here besides considering she was totally content within herself. She was ready for a long and happy life by herself. When her hubby was alive, these feelings of hers were expressionless. Stephanie R. | | | | I�ve read a few other things by Kate Chopin, and �The Story of an 60 minutes� fits into the body of her piece of work very neatly. She foreshadows the end of the story blatantly, and if you�re at all familiar with her piece of work, the ending is no surprise. It would exist fitting that her supposedly dead husband�s return (safely) to the business firm would trigger her death, since she is, later on all, �afflicted with a heart trouble.� One time she�s got her mind assault being �gratis� from her husband, she is completely unprepared to deal with being imprisoned behind him once once more. Some words that caught my attention were particularly in the 2nd paragraph, with �broken,� �veiled,� �revealed,� and �half concealing.� Some other particular that caught my eye was that her hubby was �leading the list of �killed�,� when he was, in reality, �far from the scene of the accident, and did non even know that there had been one.� Things that surprised me: she�s �young� only �afflicted with a centre trouble.� If she�s young, would she have had time to even feel imprisoned past her marriage? �And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did information technology matter! What could dearest, the unsolved mystery . . . � If she�s young, why did she marry him if non for love? I suppose in that location isn�t room to address all of these problems in 1 short story. Perhaps Chopin is addressing the fact that not anybody at this time married for dearest--�The unsolved mystery�--is it unsolved considering the woman doesn�t know what it is? She hasn�t felt it. She seems to never take loved this homo that is her husband. She loves her new-found hr-long freedom, only non her own husband? Finally, �heart affliction--of the joy that kills�--what�southward that all near? Joy that kills? She�s happy to take him back? Is that what the dr. thinks? She�s heartbroken because her liberty was all imaginary, just an hour long. Is that what killed her? That�s been bothering me always since I read it, which is, I suppose, the author�southward intent. Caitlin S. | | | | Equally I read this story, I noticed at that place was a definite juxtaposition of adult female and man. I found the character of Richards unnecessary. Simple exposition through Josephine could take easily explained the blow. While I�1000 on the field of study of Richards--why was he �near� Mrs. Mallard? I don�t think it was entirely innocent because he had waited to �assure� himself of the husband�s death. What odd diction. The passage with Mrs. Mallard staring off out of the window of her room was the near significant in my opinion. The reason why is because the natural world (i.e., the blue patches of sky peeking out through the clouds, the tops of trees all aquiver, the jiff of rain, etc.) mirrors Mrs. Mallard�s feelings. The world breaks open with new, bound life, simply every bit Mrs. Mallard�south new life is most to begin. The phrase �a fiddling whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips� is wonderful. �Free� is a very appropriate discussion to �escape� one�s lips. When Mrs. Mallard and Josephine descend from the top of the stairs to encounter the two men, I couldn�t help just express mirth. It seems that the women had to come down to the level of the men . . . kind of a descent into hell sort of affair . . . peradventure I�k reading too much into it . . . did anyone else choice up on that? A major gap that I picked upwardly on was the husband�due south reaction to his wife�s death. I keep thinking that if Chopin had showed us a little more in that scene, that peradventure he, likewise, would experience �costless.� I noticed, as well, that Richards, who thinks himself the virtually tender, conscientious friend, doesn�t help out while Louise is upstairs. Information technology�southward her sister who helps her. Richards is downstairs twiddling his thumbs . . . yea, existent tender, careful guy . . . and then conscientious in fact that he fails in his terminal attempt to shield the sight of the husband from Mrs. Mallard. Also, the husband�south death was mentioned in one paragraph, but Louise�southward journey of freedom took up the bulk of the story. Definitely a woman-power story (for lack of a better term). Leigh W. | | | | I have read this story earlier. Information technology�s one of my favorites. I don�t view Louise�s reaction to her husband�due south expiry as a wrong way to react. Of course back in the 1800�s, the cultural �norm� was for a woman feel tremendously grievous, and distraught over the decease of her married man. Dorsum in those days a woman�due south worth was primarily based on who she was married to. I don�t remember Louise was necessarily happy her husband died. At the beginning of the story later on she learned of his death information technology says, �She wept at in one case with sudden, and wild, abandonment in her sister�s artillery. When the storm of grief had spent itself, she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.� That doesn�t spell out joy to me. I think she went into her room not knowing what to experience. While she was in there �soaking in� her surroundings she began to realize certain things. One monumental thing was that life was moving on despite her husband�s decease. When I say that, I�m referring to the mentioning of �the new leap life, the delicious breath of pelting, the street caller, the open window, the open foursquare.� Ultimately she decided to view her husband�south death every bit an opportunity to become a part of that life in ways that she never had earlier. Well, equally we all know, Louise�due south husband did not die. I think the irony of the catastrophe is what ties the story upwards then well. She didn�t have a heart attack when she heard of his death, she had one when she saw him alive. The narrator wants the reader to believe that she died of disappointment at seeing her husband live. I�thousand going along with that. I likewise don�t remember she died of joy either. It�s obvious that the narrator believes that the other characters thought she died of the �joy that kills.� Chopin does an fantabulous job at convincing the reader that the other characters were clueless. She died of shock. Tin can yous imagine finding out that your spouse is dead, and accepting it i way or the other, and and so seeing that they are actually alive? Regardless of your feelings for them, it's going to impact y'all tremendously. Unfortunately, Louise�southward heart could non handle the shock. Just out of marvel. . . does anyone accept whatever ideas about what the title of the story suggests? What nigh the idea that Louise may have died of guilt? Possibly she thought her husband was actually a ghost. She did scream when she saw him. Megan Thousand. |
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