Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of an Hour” illustrates the dichotomy between the roles Victorian women enacted on the social stage and their inner selves confined within the walls of their thought process. Preconceived notions of conventional behavior are contradicted in the atypical conduct and consciousness of Mrs. Mallard. The texture of the story is fraught with symbolism and foreshadowing elements to add to the interplay between the expected and the actuality.
The story revolves around the reaction of the widow to the sudden news of her husband’s death, her sense of loud grief, the subsequent dawn of elation at her unexpected freedom, the return of her husband—travel-worn but alive, and the surprise end with her shocked demise, “died of heart disease – of joy that kills” (Chopin 5). The other two characters present – the husband’s friend, Roberts and Mrs. Mallard’s sister, Josephine act as foil to the female protagonist of the story; their behavior deemed proper to the occasion and age, while the apparently widowed lady presented as deviant to the norm of the Victorian woman. Kate Chopin depicts the psyche of a woman (Mrs. Louise Mallard) within the walls of relationships. For the protagonist, relationships were a burden of obligations, expectations and responsibilities. Death of her husband was in reality a freeing of the social and emotional shackles which chained her soul. The return of her husband, alive, is a shocking disintegration of her dreams of freedom, the shards of which pierce her heart fatally.
The title at the very outset of the story foreshadows the events to follow –“The Story of an Hour” not only aligns to the classical unities of time, place and action but also anticipates that the turbulent events to unfold will initiate and terminate within the span of an hour – from the news of her husband’s death to the reaction and finally the unexpected death of Mrs. Mallard. Within the frame of an hour, the story of a lifetime (literally) is packed and presented. Again, the opening line foreshadows the conclusion –“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” (Chopin 3). The weak heart condition of the protagonist makes her death at the sudden shock of seeing her husband alive seem plausible, and rounds up the story conclusively.
The widowed woman’s reaction predicts her unusual temperament – unlike the typical dumbfounded reception of the news of her husband’s accidental death, she breaks down into noisy grief, loud cries which exhaust her physically, causing her to retreat into the privacy of her own room. The room itself houses many of the symbols the authoress uses to manifest Mrs. Mallard’s inner self and consciousness. The door shut to the outside world indicates her seclusion from the expectations of social behavior, walling herself in her own private space of truth and self-study. The window is a symbol of the escape she yearns from the repressed life she had within the relationship with her husband. The societal pressure on the Victorian woman, burdening her with inflexible virtues and morals makes Chopin’s questioning the inner reality of the woman’s complex mind and soul so interesting an effort. The widow is emblematic of the loss of male support (read control) and therefore a figure of pity. The way Mrs. Mallard closes the door and goes near the open window is symbolic of the restrictive society she lives in, her soul yearning for the escape route to the colors of the spring and summer.
The marital bond between the apparently deceased Mr. Mallard and his wife is hinted at –symbolic of patriarchal control. “It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long” (Chopin 4). It is Chopin’s iconoclastic observation which makes her view the relationships which form the foundation of the human society as symbiotic claims of rights and duties.
The world outside her window seemed to beckon her with new abandonment, a fresh spring life – the smell of rain, the azure spaces of the sky amidst the clouds, the litanies of peddlers, the joyous sounds of sparrows. She felt herself “aquiver with new spring life” (Chopin 3). After the cold and gloomy darkness of winter, spring symbolizes the birth of new life; in Mrs. Mallard’s case, it symbolized her breaking away from the fetters of restrictive relationships into the unbound freedom of life, into endless possibilities and hopes for the future. “There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled above the other in the west facing her window” (Chopin 3) – the clouds symbolize the heavy repression in her life with her husband, while the patches of blue sky indicate the space and choice available to her now, the new vistas of independence opening up before her eyes. . Her erstwhile loud cries at her the death news drifted away into intermittent sobs, stemming more out of habit than emotion. Her young fair face mirrored her calm resolute strength, amidst the silent lines of repression, bespeaking the unequal equation the husband-wife had shared. The description of the face foresees the enormity of the concept of freedom to her – the “monstrous joy” (Chopin 4) that captivated her senses, overwhelming her with ecstasy. This ‘joy’ in fact foreshadows the ‘joy that kills” – the ironic reversal which was the fatal cause in actuality.
The widow of an hour, habituated to years of subjugation, is too used to her mental cage: the concept of liberty is symbolized as a tumultuous force, entering her world, almost against the weak resistance of her being: ‘she was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will…” (Chopin 4). The idea of free will and choice to live life without the constraints of spousal dominance seemed terrifying at first; she willed against such thought, but the power of the elation which warmed her entire being made her breathless at the idea of emancipation opening in front of her. It is interesting to note that throughout the text, it is only at the moment of illumination that Chopin endows Mrs. Mallard with her first name identity “Louise” – as if the erasure of the social tag of the wife paved the way for the entity of the self-asserting woman. Kate Chopin comments on the figure emerging from the room as a “goddess of Victory” (Chopin 5) – symbolic of the power of emancipation she personified.
Kate Chopin with her complex vision of life, especially her insight into the closeted space of the woman’s mind and soul often “portrayed women who seek spiritual and sexual freedom amid the restrictive mores of nineteenth-century Southern society” (“Chopin, Kate: Introduction”). Her message about the contradiction between the interpreted reality and the actual truth comes across strongly through the interplay of the elements of symbolism and foreshadowing Chopin uses throughout the short story “The Story of an Hour”.
Works Cited
Chopin, Kate. The Story of an Hour. Perfection Learning: 2001.
“Chopin, Kate: Introduction”. Feminism in Literature . ;http://www.enotes.com/feminism-literature/chopin-kate;.
