SCRIPT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chopin was also very aware of the divide between the powerful and the oppressed in society at
the time. She grew up during the U.S. Civil War, so she had first-hand knowledge of violence
and slavery in the United States
“The Story of an Hour” reflects Chopin’s view of the repressive role that marriage played in
women’s lives as the protagonist, Louise Mallard, feels immense freedom only when her
husband has died. While he is alive, she must live for him, and only when he dies does her life
once again become her own.
PERIOD WRITTEN
After Americans discovered the harshness of the Civil War and life on the frontier, American
authors attempted to represent ordinary, everyday life instead of imagined and fanciful events.
Because of this, the works of the Realism period revolved around the lives of common people.
With these works, themes like survival and violence were commonly used to portray the harsh
side of reality.
Analyzing Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” takes time and careful thought despite the shortness
of the story. The story is open to multiple interpretations and has a lot to reveal about women in
the 1890s, and many of the story that critiques women’s marriage roles during the period.
WHAT’S UP WITH THE TITLE?
The title of a story serves as an important link to the plot. In this case, the title “The Story of an
Hour” aptly suits the main plot of the short story. The freedom and joy gained in one hour after
her husband’s death are quickly lost. Within an hour she has a glimpse of her life free from
restrictions and her husband and then loses all her dreams and aspirations at the sight of her
husband, still alive. The introspection towards life and independence takes place in one hour, at
the end of which Louise meets her sudden death.

PLOT SUMMARY
EXPOSITION
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to
break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed
in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her.

RISING ACTION

It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad
disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had
only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had
hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

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
alone. She would have no one follow her.

CLIMAX

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she
sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to
reach into her soul.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it?
She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of
the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the
air.

When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips.
She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the
look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her
pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and
exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she
would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that
had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw
beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her
absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.

And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What
could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-
assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!

"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.

FALLING ACTION

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring
for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill.
What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."

"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life
through that open window.

Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring 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.

She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a
feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of
Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs.
Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.

RESOLUTION

Someone was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who
entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had
been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He
stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from
the view of his wife.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills. 

CHARACTERS
Just read the slides
SETTING
The story takes place in a house and specifically in the bedroom with a window
to the world. The limited space of the house is like the cage in which Louise
feels she is living. The room is where her thoughts can come forth in privacy,
like the privacy of her own mind.

CONFLICT
The major conflict seen in this story is man versus society. Societal rules and expectations
imposed upon men and women create animosity between them. A woman is expected only to
take care of the private sphere but not make an appearance in the public sphere whereas a man is
not imposed with such rules which is what happened and what Louise the protagonist felt
POINT OF VIEW

This is key because the opening of the story begins with us readers knowing
something Mrs. Mallard doesn't, and because the story ends after Mrs.
Mallard has already died. If Mrs. Mallard were telling the story in first person,
readers would be exposed to a whole different explanation of her weak heart,
and the story would end very differently – and somewhat earlier.
LITERARY DEVICES
FORESHADOWING- Throughout “The Story of an Hour,” there are several hints that
foreshadow Louise Mallard’s death from heart failure at the end of the story. The first line of the
story reads:
METAPHOR- When Louise hears the news that her husband, Brently, has died, she weeps
uncontrollably, and the story uses the metaphor of a storm to suggest that Louise’s grief is a
natural force that’s overwhelming, larger-than-life, and uncontrollable.
IMAGERY- While weeping over the news of her husband, Brently’s, death, Louise collapses in
an armchair and gazes out her bedroom window. The story uses multiple types of imagery to
describe Louise’s view
PERSONIFICATION- After Louise learns that her husband, Brently, was killed in a railroad
accident, she gazes out her bedroom window and tries to suppress the joy that begins to
overcome her. This emotion is imbued with human-like characteristics:
SIMILE- After Louise Mallard learns that her husband, Brently, was killed in a railroad accident,
she weeps until she collapses on the armchair in her bedroom. The story uses a simile here to
compare Louise to a child:
STRUCTURE AND STYLE
The story’s limited timeframe means that author Kate Chopin doesn’t dedicate much attention to
exposition or flashbacks, instead focusing on Louise’s thoughts, feelings, and surroundings in the
present moment. This story can be read quickly, but the impact it makes is powerful. Chopin
surprises us first with Louise’s elated reaction when she first murmurs “free” to herself. She
shocks us again at the conclusion when she dies upon Brently’s return. The “heart disease”
mentioned at the end of the story echoes the “heart trouble” discussed at the beginning,
intensifying the twist ending and bringing the story to a satisfying close.

TONE

The tone of the story, which was written by Kate Chopin, is saturated with irony. Louis
Mallard, the lead character in the story, loses her husband, just to realize that she never loved
him to begin with. In doing so, she gains a sense of freedom from her late husband, a freedom
that she does love; it gives her ephemeral life some meaning. The tone, which begins with hints
of sadness, ascends to a state of glee. “Free! Body and soul free!” Then, irony strikes. She
discovers that her husband, whom she does not love, is actually still alive, and that she is not free
after all. Her life suddenly loses meaning and, coincidentally, she suddenly, to a heart attack,
loses her life. The story thus ends, following the reintroduction of Louis’s husband, Brently
Mallard, with the tone having descended back into the dreary depression with which it began.

MOOD

Though the mood at the start of the story was sad as the news of Louise’s husband's death
reached her, it slowly escalated to happiness and joy. While in the room all by herself, Louise
realized with sudden excitement that she was finally free, free from the control of her husband,
and could do anything she liked. The taste of freedom and the happiness of discovering it lifted
the mood of the story. It became light-hearted and joyful. But as the story reached its climax, it
quickly escalated into shock. On seeing her husband alive, Louise went into shock and finally
died of a heart attack.

THEMES
FREEDOM- Chopin shows how deeply important freedom is to the life of a woman when, in the
end, it’s not the shock of her husband’s return of her husband that kills Louise, but rather the
thought of losing her freedom again.
REPRESSION- In their marriage, Louise is repressed. Readers see this in the fact that Brently is
moving around in the outside world, while Louise is confined to her home. Brently uses railroad
transportation on his own, walks into the house of his own accord, and has individual
possessions in the form of his briefcase and umbrella. Brently is even free from the knowledge of
the train wreck upon his return home. Louise, on the other hand, is stuck at home by virtue of her
position as a woman and her heart condition. 
MARRIAGE- By showing a marriage that had been built on control and society’s expectations,
Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” highlights the need for a world that respects women as
valuable partners in marriage as well as capable individuals.

Marriage in Louise Mallard’s case has very little love. She sees her marriage as a life-long bond
in which she feels trapped, which readers see when she confesses that she loved her husband
only “sometimes.” She uses Louise to criticize the oppressive and repressive nature of marriage,
especially when Louise rejoices in her newfound freedom. 

LESSON
THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE- The moral of the story undermines the famous saying
"the truth shall set you free"; Mrs. Mallard finds freedom in the false belief that her husband is
dead, and dies when she faces the truth. By dying at the end of the story, Mrs. Mallard fulfills her
earlier fantasies of freeing herself from her humdrum, yet pleasant married life. Once the grief of
finding out her husband died passes over her, Louise begins to realize that with his passing she
has the freedom to live her own life. You can see the moment this realization hits as she
whispers, “free, free, free.”

FREEDOM AND CONFINEMENT- At first, freedom seems like a terrible thing to

Mrs. Mallard, who's restricted in lots of ways: through her marriage, by her bad
heart, and even inside her home, which she doesn't leave during "The Story of
an Hour." On the other hand, though, she has considerable freedom as an
upper-class, married lady. She can tell freedom's coming for her, and she
dreads it. Once it arrives, though, it fills her with an overpowering joy. Yet, she
experiences this mental and emotional freedom while being confined to a
room. As soon as she leaves that room, the freedom she'd only just barely
begun to understand is taken away from her.
POINTS FOUND WANTING
Though the story is short and almost perfect because it definitely captured my time worth
reading and interest, still, I would like to point out what lacks in this story I asked myself three
questions.
The first is that I anticipated a more thorough and detailed account of married life to determine
whether Mrs. Mallard truly felt confined, unfree, and dissatisfied with her husband. I also would
like to know how she got married to her husband and how the marriage went on.
In order to determine whether Mr. Mallard (the husband) is to blame for Mrs. Mallard's feelings
of liberation after learning of her husband's alleged death, I wish the author had been more
detailed about Mr. Mallard's character. Does Mr. Mallard possess the traits that would prevent
him from being Mrs. Mallard's ideal husband? And what is his job?
Third, since the author mentioned in the beginning that Mrs. Mallard (the protagonist) has a heart
condition, I would like to know why Mrs. Mallard suffered from a heart condition and how bad it
was because she suddenly died at the end of the story.

From the female perspective, it could be 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 death was a punishment
for her happiness at the death of her husband? It is not as farfetched as it seems and raises many more
questions as to the goal this story sets out to achieve.

In case:
I do not think that Brently Mallard physically abused his wife and he did love her but I think the
way he loved her was not the way she wanted. "She would live for herself (10)" indicates that
she has existed for her husband, and lived a suppressed life. She loved her husband too but she
thought that "men and women have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature (10)"
and that her husband's love is same to love toward possessions.