Around the world, societies have placed immense responsibilities on women as the pillars of their families and it is sad that the responsibilities become oppressive. “The Story of an Hour” is Kate Chopin’s story about a woman who is told that her husband had died in an accident. The story was first published in 1894 in Vogue. In this story, Chopin shows great determination in her opposition to the oppression women face. At the time, Chopin wrote her story, women were undergoing great oppression especially from the domestic front. In the story, Chopin depicts marriage as taking away a woman’s happiness and the binding issue of separation through death as limiting the liberties of women while the idea of marriage is confining and limiting to women.
Kate Chopin uses irony to show that marriage takes away a woman’s individuality and happiness. Chopin notes after receiving the news about the death of her husband, Mrs. Mallard sinks into a comfortable armchair “pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul” (Chopin 1). The death of Mr. Mallard seems to have triggered memories, or issues in her life for which she had accumulated plenty of exhaustion and unhappiness. Indeed Mrs. Mallard had to suppress the thoughts of anything that brought her unhappiness to the point in which she would become numb and ill. Wang notes that Mrs. Mallard had a heart trouble which was not only a physical illness but also an emotional one (108). Wang quotes from Berkove who noted that “Louise is sick, emotionally as well as physically” (Berkove 156). Chopin creates the issue of Mrs. Mallard being sick to illustrate that before her death, Mrs. Mallard never felt individualized and valued as a woman because of the expectations that she had to fulfill as a wife. Marriage is depicted as taking away a woman’s happiness.
Chopin depicts liberation in the death of an oppressive marriage. The author incorporates irony to put an unexpected twist on marriage and death to prove what happens when a woman is robbed of love. When Mrs. Mallard heard of her husband’s death, “she did not hear the story as many women have heard the same with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance” (Chopin 1). Instead Mrs. Mallard’s liberation from marriage now that her husband was dead was marked by some expression of relief in that “she wept once with a sudden wild abandonment” (Chopin 1). The author also manipulates repetition to emphasize the toll unhappiness can take on the human spirit. The unhappiness that has characterized Mrs. Mallard’s marriage life was over and she could now appreciate several things in nature such as the new spring life and the delicious breath of rain in the air. It is in her liberated state that she could notice these and other things in her immediate neighborhood. As depicted by the author, when a woman is robbed of love, she loses herself and her appreciation of life and vibrancy regardless of their abundance in her immediate environment (Calder 34). She gets emotionally troubled and is in a constant pursuit of liberation. It is after her husband’s death that Mrs. Mallard “breathed a quick prayer that life might be long” (Chopin 2). She made the prayer so that she could make up for the time that she had lost while locked up in a loveless and oppressive marriage that had been brought to an and by death.
The confinement and limitations are evident because Mrs. Mallard had entered into her marriage viewing it as a trap rather than an opportunity to grow which unfortunately she had no control over. Hicks notes that Chopin portrayed the actual status of women such as Mrs. Mallard who were “unable to fully embrace their own feminine ideas and express their ideas” (2). The author stresses on the freedom that came upon Mrs. Mallard when she learnt of her husband’s death. Mrs. Mallard experienced some joy that led even her body to react in a calming manner because “she stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.” (Chopin 2). There is some suggestion to the fact that although the women were confined and limited in their marriages, many were hopelessly in love with their husbands and all they longed for and lacked from their men was love. The author states that Mrs. Mallard knew she would weep again when she saw her husband’s body. “She would weep againwhen she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death, the face that had never looked save with love upon her” (Chopin 2). However, the weeping would be momentary and she was prepared to go through it as she awaited the many glorious days of freedom that were to come. It was as if she would be starting her life afresh with the enthusiasm to pursuing dreams without there being limitations.
Whereas, the death of a spouse and a loved one is expected to bring someone untold anguish and sorrow, it is the opening of new door and new potentially joyous life for one Mrs. Mallard. Renowned author, Kate Chopin uses the woman to speak on behalf of the many Victorian women who suffered in unhappy and oppressive marriages. The events that transpire after the alleged death of Mr. Mallard show that his wife lived in an unhappy marriage or rather that marriage took away a woman’s happiness. Women used obtain liberation from oppressive marriages in the death of their spouses and that marriage in itself was a limiting and confining institution for women.
Works Cited
Maynard, Lee A. Beautiful Boredom: Idleness and Feminine Self-Realization in the Victorian Novel. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009.
Chopin, Kate. The Story Of An Hour. Web 9 July 2016 http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/standards_docs/english/2010/text_dependent_questions/text_dependent_question_text_high_2_story-of-an-hour.pdf
Tahameed, Bushra. Married Life As Portrayed In Kate Chopin’s “The Story Of An Hour” And Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” Play. Thesis. Web 9 July 2016 http://repository.sustech.edu/bitstream/handle/123456789/11703/MARRIED%20LIFE%20AS%20PORTRAYEDpdf?sequence=1
Hicks, Victoria. Patriarchal Representation and Domestic Liberation: The Home in Kate Chopin’s Short Fiction. Thesis. Web 9 July 2016 http://toto.lib.unca.edu/sr_papers/literature_sr/srliterature_2009/hicks_victoria.pdf
Calder, Jenni. Women and Marriage in Victorian Fiction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. Print.
