Text Interpretation

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 553.

Kate Chopin. "The Story of аn Hour"

- “Do you love me?”

- “Of course I do...”

The question everyone's heard at least once a life. The answer a person gives without any hesitation. When you've found your second “half”, as a rule, you don't muse whether you really love her or him. The understanding comes only when something happens. It's in human nature to think about any problem only when we're stricken by an extreme necessity. In her short story Kate Chopin describes this very case that changed the woman's life tree times during an hour.

The author tells us about Mrs. Mallard, a young, yet married woman who suffered from heart trouble. She got the news about her husband's death from her closest relatives. Firstly, Louise behaved the way any wife would do: she burst out crying and stormed into her room. But then we begin to realize, that the situation is not that ordinary and that it has absolutely an unexpected end.

The author begins her story in rather an unusual way. She doesn't show us common things, such as atmosphere, the main character's description or any kind of prologue. The information about the death of the main heroine's husband is presented in the very first sentence. When describing Louise's condition after such tragic news, the author uses hyperboles (“…she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment…”, “the storm of grief”) to depict the enormous distress that the young woman felt. It seems that everything will be evident: she will spend a lot of time crying, her relatives will calm her down. But she appeared not to be so predictable.

She comprehended the news later, and the author shows us, detail by detail, how she came to realize it and what helped her to do it. She went to her room, and "there stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair". Reading these words, the readers suddenly realize that

something gives the story a more positive, reassuring turn. A woman in deep grief wouldn't notice such nice details, as “trees…aquiver with the new spring life”, “delicious breath of rain”, ”patches of blue sky”. Kate Chopping uses these epithets and metaphors to make a kind of “bridge” between Louise's thoughts. If firstly Louise understood that she had remained alone, then absolutely different thoughts came to her head.

The decisive moment comes when “whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips”. She said it over and over under her breath: "Free, free, free!" So, here is the climax of the story. The metaphoric usage of "escape" reveals Mrs. Mallard's state. This feeling, - freedom, - was obviously something Louise hadn't felt for a long time. She was perfectly happy with the fact that she regained her freedom. The metaphor "she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window", the epithet "feverish (triumph in her eyes)" are employed to emphasize her state and her unnatural behaviour. The oxymoron "a monstrous joy" shows that her reaction was absolutely abnormal.

Her sister, Josephine, was worried about the amount of time Louise had spent in her room all alone and anxiously knocked on the door to ask whether she was alright. Feeling better than ever and imagining a new life filled with happiness and freedom, Louise willingly opened the door and descended down the stairs. The antithesis "And yet she had loved him - sometimes. Often she had not" compel us to make a definite conclusion that all her love towards her husband was just an illusion.

And then she suddenly saw her husband safe and sound: "the open window" was “closed”. Mrs. Mallard died "of joy that kills". We understand, however, that the doctors were wrong to think she had died from happiness. Her heart didn't bear the thought of living again under her husband's will, especially after experiencing freedom, even just for one hour. So now the title of the short-story comes to be filled with a deeper sense: it describes one hour Mrs. Mallard spent dreaming about her new free life, from getting the incorrect death message till tragically passing away. In my opinion, the theme of "The story of an hour" is that women that lived a hundred years ago didn't feel free. They felt that they weren't able to do what they wanted to, since their family duties took too much of their time. Another possible theme is the irony of fate, since Louise's dreams eventually took a wrong turn and turned out to become her destiny.

"The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin is an impressive literary piece, which touches the reader's feelings as well as mind. Although the story is really short, it is rich and complete, and every word in it carries deep sense. A number of messages are conveyed in this story. A human being is born to be free, but he shouldn't just rely on destiny and wait for freedom, he must fight for it and then he'll deserve that very freedom. It is necessary to choose what you prefer: to love and be happy in marriage or to be free and live for yourself. Only fully realizing his\her priorities, a person could be happy.