The character and story of Louise Mallard in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” reflects the feelings of women towards their partners at a time when women were repressed and that the price of freedom oftentimes comes in the form of the death of the male partner. Told by Josephine in “broken sentences,” Mrs. Mallard heard about the news of the tragic death of her husband Brently Mallard in a train accident. As the story unfolds, Mrs. Mallard appears to have a mixture of relief and weeping, mesmerized by the situation she understood as the end of her enchainment to her husband. In fact, Mrs. Mallard repeatedly whispered to herself “free, free, free!” signifying how she felt elated from the death of Brently Mallard. At the end of the story, Mrs. Mallard found out that her husband is alive which surprised her, consequently killing her which designates how frustrated she was, complicated in no small way by her heart disease. As Kate Chopin writes, it was “the joy that kills” which took away Louise Mallard’s life.
The title of the story itself suggests how such a short span of time can elate the mind of a woman from an apparent moment of freedom. “The Story of an Hour” suggests how diverse thoughts have occupied the sanity of Louise Mallard, from asking if it was or was not “a monstrous joy that held her” to thinking about how “there would be no one to live for” in the coming years, in just an hour. More importantly, the diverse thoughts that crept into the mind of Mrs. Mallard in such a short time appeared to show how powerless she was when the thoughts flooded her mind. She was literally at the mercy of the immense possibilities that loomed beyond the horizon. Yet even though the thoughts came to overpower her while she locked herself in the room, sitting while facing the window, the apparent feeling of liberty was capturing her senses. “Free, free, free” and “free! Body and soul free” Louise Mallard whispered to herself while thinking about the “possession of self-assertion” that she “suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being.”
A closer reading of the text reveals that, indeed, “The Story of an Hour” is a feminist reading, or a literary work with indubitable hints of a feminist perspective. It is significant to consider that feminism as a movement explains and investigates the male and female genders in the society, especially their roles and the situations caused by and surrounding the genders (Thompson and Linda, p. 851). An important thing to note too is that feminism is generally divided into three “waves” from an academic point of view—the first wave indicates how women in particular identified their struggles and their rights in the society from a largely legal perspective; the second wave indicates the actual struggles of women to attain the rights that they have identified and the overturning of the de facto inequalities in the society; and the third wave of feminism challenges the idea of the ‘feminine’ posited by the second wave of feminism (Hayes, McAllister and Studlar, p. 425). From the given waves of feminism, it can be said that “The Story of an Hour” revolves around the first wave of feminism especially since the story was written in 1894 which was a time when women faced the several legal and social constraints on their part such as the fact that they were not allowed to vote during those times and that the only role of women was confined inside the house (Thomas, p. 541).
It is important to identify which wave of feminism Chopin’s story essentially belongs to because it significantly helps in understanding why the author wrote the story in a way that portrays women as oppressed, and that death is one way where women can have a ‘taste’ of liberty. In the story, Mrs. Mallard appears to be confused with how she should react upon hearing the news about the death of her husband. At first, Mrs. Mallard “wept at once, with sudden wild abandonment” as if she was acting out of grief and desperation, out of disbelief and rage. Later on, Mrs. Mallard locked herself alone inside her room, contemplating on the sudden death of her husband, her feelings being tempted by the idea of emancipation from the hand of Mr. Mallard. This illustrates how the transition of her feelings—from a short moment of grief to a moment where her thoughts revolve around the idea of freedom in body and soul—exemplifies the underlying longing for freedom on the part of women, especially married women. The case of Mrs. Mallard provides a glimpse of how women want to liberate themselves from the clutches of men. For all we know, Mrs. Mallard’s case is only one of the many cases of oppression which were happening during the time when Chopin wrote the story. It would not be surprising if Chopin’s inspirations to write the story are the cases of oppression women dealt with during the late nineteenth century, and of how these women have always wanted to attain emancipation from men and from the patriarchal structure of the society.
One proof of repression that can be traced from the story is how Chopin described Mrs. Mallard: “she was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression.” Mrs. Mallard was young; the “lines” on her face stands as an ironic feature of her youthful and calm face since it is unnatural for young women to have lines on their faces at such a young age. Another indications in the story that Mrs. Mallard is repressed are her “physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul” and her “heart trouble”. Physical exhaustion, face with lines bespeaking of repression and heart trouble—indeed, all of these things, among others, are not common to a young woman whose physique ought to be exuding an aura of vitality and freshness. All of these things point to the idea that her husband, Brently Mallard has a lot to do with them, especially since Mrs. Mallard had the thought of how there will be “no powerful will bending hers” as “she would live for herself” knowing that her husband is already dead. In sum, the death of her husband is the death of the repression she has been experiencing in her life as a wife and the birth of a freedom long called upon by her body and soul.
Moreover, given that Mrs. Mallard was suffering from a heart disease, it is ironic that she did not die after hearing the news about her husband’s death. Rather, it was the sight of her husband who was alive and well that brought her demise, perhaps surprised to see her husband in the flesh when all the while she thought he was dead already. As Chopin writes, Mrs. Mallard “died of heart disease—of the joy that kills,” thereby reaffirming the idea that her hope of emancipation which was almost so close she could almost taste it was immediately extinguished by the realization that the man who held her life is still alive; Mrs. Mallard realized that she was still under the clutches of her husband, destroying her hopes of liberty that clung to her mind when she was in her room.
How deeply and strongly did Mrs. Mallard want emancipation from her husband’s repression? The answer to that question can be looked into the situation where Mrs. Mallard was alone in her room: with her mind “running riot along those days ahead of her” without her dead husband, “she breathed a quick prayer that life might be long,” indicating how she is hoping that she will be having a longer life in order to savor the emancipation that she thought she now had. More importantly, “it was only yesterday she had thought with shudder that life might be long,” indicating how repressed she felt while her husband was still alive, and knowing that the rest of her life will be spent with her husband’s repressive nature whose powerful will bent her own. As Michael Kimmel notes, “men during the late nineteenth century were engrossed with the idea of untamed supremacy over women, brought about by the seemingly endless string of structural problems (p. 264).”
“The Story of an Hour” also provides a glimpse of how women reacted to their repressed situation during the late nineteenth century. For one, Mrs. Mallard could only keep to herself the repression she is enduring, and that the thought of emancipation only occurred to her at the time of the news of her husband’s death. In fact, Chopin describes Mrs. Mallard as having the “paralyzed inability to accept its significance,” referring to the train tragedy which caused the death of her husband. Mrs. Mallard had not immediately conceived of the liberty that loomed above her given her husband’s death, and that it was only during her isolation in her room when the insight of that liberty crept into her being. That characteristic tells how women during those times could not begin to think or realize their emancipation from repression for as long as their husbands lived. It was the very presence and lives of their husbands and of men in general which kept them away from that golden realization.
Deborah A. Gordon writes that “one of the main reasons why women have been largely unable to free themselves from the repressive forces that hinder them from realizing the meaning of their lives is that men in general have constantly reinforced and imposed their will on women (p. 110).” Further, Angela McRobbie stresses the idea that “when the will of men casted down on women is lifted, the tendency is for women to have that sense of liberation as if a heavy burden has been taken off of their shoulders (p. 98).” Thus, it is not surprising to know how Mrs. Mallard’s feelings went after she locked herself inside the room, contemplating on the wide possibilities—possibilities that are wider than ever before—that elated her life. The very death of Mr. Mallard came like a sad news at first to her, exemplified in no small way by her weeping and “sudden, wild abandonment.” The next moment, the news seemed to her like good news filled with promises of a better and freer life. Indeed, it was as if a heavy burden, or a hex, has been lifted from her body and soul. “Free, free, free,” as Mrs. Mallard would whisper to herself in the room. A symbolism of how Mrs. Mallard sees the opportunities that awaited her can be found at the time of her isolation—“there were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds” as she faced the window. “The patches of blue sky” amidst the clouds visible to the eyes of Mrs. Mallard from the view through the room window perfectly symbolizes her situation—the room where she is in isolation symbolizes her ‘caged’ state and the patches of blue sky symbolize the free life that awaits her from beyond the clouds.
In essence, “The Story of an Hour” can be better understood from a feminist perspective, whether or not Kate Chopin was already aware of that perspective. The life of Mrs. Mallard during that short hour clearly illustrates how women have always wanted to be freed from repression, and that the bitter-sweet moment can be glanced upon the death of their spouses, or of their separation from men in general. Ironically, the turn of events would take away that moment of bliss for Mrs. Mallard, putting death in its place instead. Knowing that her husband was still alive, she knew too well that life ahead of her was still long and agonizing. At that moment when she realized her husband was still alive, the moment of bliss peaked and the state of confusion swirled around her: it was a joy to know that her husband was alive, and yet it was a sorrowful moment just as well to know that her dream of emancipation was just that—nothing but a dream. Her heart finally surrendered itself from “the joy that kills.”
Works Cited
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” The Awakening and Selected Stories of Kate Chopin. Signet Classics, 1976. 198-99.
Gordon, Deborah A. “The Unhappy Relationship of Feminism and Postmodernism in Anthropology.” Anthropological Quarterly 66.3 (1993): 110.
Hayes, Bernadette C., Ian McAllister, and Donley T. Studlar. “Gender, Postmaterialism, and Feminism in Comparative Perspective.” International Political Science Review 21.4 (2000): 425.
Kimmel, Michael S. “Men’s Responses to Feminism at the Turn of the Century.” Gender and Society 1.3 (1997): 264.
McRobbie, Angela. “Feminism and the Third Way.” Feminist Review.64 (2000): 98.
Thomas, Janet. “Women and Capitalism: Oppression or Emancipation? A Review Article.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 30.3 (1988): 541.
Thompson, Linda, and Alexis J. Walker. “The Place of Feminism in Family Studies.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 57.4 (1995): 851.
