The Story of an Hour

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 478.

Sample 1.

Evaluate the Title

The original title of “The Story of an Hour” was “The Dream of an Hour.” Why might the title have been changed? How are the titles similar? different?

Which title do you think is more appropriate? Why?

by Kate Chopin

a stylistic analysis

1) The story under consideration is written by Kate Chopin, a famous American writer of short stories and novels, who is known for addressing feminist issues.

2) "The Story of an Hour", that may be defined as a family drama, focuses on a woman's reaction to the shocking news that her husband has died in a railroad accident and then her dramatic response to discovering that he is actually alive.

3)The action takes place in a single hour in an American home in the last decade of the nineteenth century. The time frame of the story (an hour) is indicated already in its title (The Story of an Hour). Another salient position which gives the initial clue to the overall comprehension of the story is its begging ("Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble") which foreshadows, to some extent, the ending or at least hints that Mrs. Mallard's heart condition will affect the outcome of the story. The “heart trouble” discussed at the beginning of the story echoes the “heart disease” mentioned at the end, intensifying the twist ending and bringing the story to a satisfying close.

4) The general slant of the text is rather dramatic and heightened by the composition of the text as well as by its vocabulary. The story starts with the exposition which contains a short presentation of place (her room), the characters of the story (Mrs. Mallard, her sister Josephine, her husband's friend Richard) and introduces the reader to the event depicted in it (a great care was given to break her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death). The unexpected and abnormal way Mrs. Mallard took the news ("She didn't hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance") is highlighted by the oxymoron a monstrous joy. Only when “the storm of grief had spend itself”, she started thinking of the way her life would change. The climax of the story comes when “[...] a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "Free, free, free!" A chain of metaphors "a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips ", “her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body”, “a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely” as well as the repetition "Free, free, free!", "Free! Body and soul free!" and the hope "she would live for herself" reveal Mrs. Mallard's unconscious dream to be free. We can guess that she was unhappy in her family life, her husband "never looked save with love upon her” This idea is also intensified by the epithet "bitter" in the expression "bitter moment". The antithesis in the sentence "And yet she had loved him – sometimes. Often she had not." makes the reader arrive at a conclusion that all her love towards her husband was just an illusion. Syntactically it is marked by the detachment ("sometimes") and the inversion ("Often she had not"). In addition, Mrs. Mallard's unnatural behaviour is intensified by the metaphor "she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window", the climax "spring days and summer days and all sorts of days", and the epithet "feverish" in the expression "feverish triumph in her eyes". The unexpected denouement ("she died of heart disease") is rendered by the personification "the joy that kills" based on paradox.

5) The use of omniscient third-person narrator enables the reader to see the story which is not limited to the protagonist's point of view thus making the narrative subjective and trustworthy.

6) The author reveals Louise indirectly mainly through her behaviour. Mrs. Mallard turns out to be a highly emotional woman who experiences rather controversial emotions after her sister informed her of her husband's death. Louise's both physical and emotional “heart trouble” is made obvious through a physical exhaustionverbalized by the metaphor "pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul", the simile "a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dream"; by the epithet "paralyzed" in "a paralyzed inability"; a strong heart beating("the pulses beat fast") and a feeling of warm manifested by the metaphor "the coursing blood warmed". Her future is represented as something fearful ("There was something coming to her and she was waiting for her, fearfully), unknown and even mysterious ("What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name").

The syntax, too, imparts expressivity to the given story. The text abounds in emphatic constructions ("It was her sister Josephine who told her […]; It was he who had been in the newspaper office […]; It was Brently Mallard who entered […]"; conversion ("There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank […]; different kinds of repetition: 1) separate words, e. g. open, free; 2) phrases and sentences, e.g. “She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday that she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.”

A special emphasis in the story is given to use of the symbolic images. For example, springtime may parallel the new exciting life that Mrs. Mallard anticipates; patches of blue sky – the emergence of her new life; the open window from which Louise gazes may represent the freedom and opportunities that await her after her husband's death.

Taken together, the system of symbols, expressive language and syntax, compressed composition creates a sensual independent image of the main character who died overwhelmed by elation at her new-found independence and the opportunities that await her after her husband's death.