Student Essay on "story of an Hour" Analysis

The main theme to this short story relates a lot to the saying, "carpe diem", meaning to seize the day, along with living your life to the fullest with out any constraints. Along with the theme, there were several basic literary terms that I've noticed a lot and those are symbolism, metaphors, and irony, similies and personification. The story starts out right away describing Mrs. Mallard having a heart disease, and how the news of her husband's death couldnt be brought up to her in an easy manner. Once Mrs. Mallard was told the news about her husband from her sister Josephine, she immediately started to weep. "She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with paralyzed inability to accept its significance." (Chopin, 1). This passage shows Mrs. Mallards guilt and little posession of faith mostly because she realized that she had taken her husband for granted. Also, by taking her husband for granted, she felt like there was nothing else that she could do besides lose all hope in his survival which left Mrs. Mallard with nothing but heartbreak and depression. But what Mrs. Mallard doesnt know is that Mr. Mallard was a constraint to her well being and living a fullfilled life.

Symbolism was a strong term in this short story, mainly because I could point out a symbol in most of the detailed paragraphs. Paragraph 6, "There were patches...west facing her window." (Chopin, 1). Possibly meaning death, or wished death upon herself. For example, I was explained to before that the saying "going west/the coast" meant death. Also, in Mrs. Mallard's situation, it would make sense for Chopin to make this symbolic reference. Another symbol was everything in paragraph 9. "There was something...the color filled the air." (Chopin, 1). It describes Mrs. Mallard experiencing this "something" reaching for her, and it was so strong that it over ruled the sounds, scents and colors that were in the air which were the main things that Mrs. Mallard would look at out her window. The "something" that is reaching for her is a symbol of revolting, and control. Mrs. Mallard was revolting from letting her husband's death take over her identity of a calm-faced, young woman. She was also gaining control, because she started to become relieved that she was free from her husbands boundaries, and now she feels like she can move on to greater views for the future.

Metaphors is another common term in this story. Metaphors were more common because they came up more than the views I had for symbolism. In the 7th paragraph, it says "except when a...to sob in its dreams." (Chopin, 1). This let the reader realize the greif that Mrs. Mallard was suffering. Chopin made a comparison to a child crying itself to sleep to how Mrs. Mallard was handling her greiving. This is metaphorical because Mrs. Mallard was acting the way a child would act, for example, if you were to dicipline a child. Mrs. Mallard excluded herself from everyone, by sitting in a room all alone, where as a child would do the same thing if they were to be diciplined. Along with crying, Mrs. Mallard realized that having a husband that died isnt easy to cope with, where a child would do the same thing, only on less severe accounts, if you were to take a toy away from them. In paragraph 8, "But now there was...intelligent thought." (Chopin, 1). In this passage, when it described her gazing at a blue sky, it also said that there was more to Mrs. Mallard's gaze than just a reflection, it could also be how she's admiring the color, and how the color blue represents her feelings of repression with her husband.

The personification of Mrs. Mallard was really strong in one paragraph and stuck out from the rest of the story, in paragraph 8. "She was young...a certain strength." (Chopin, 1). This describes her gradual change from a repressed individual not realizing her husband has caused her to feel repression in the first place, to a person who is greiving over her husband who has kept her restrained from things she didnt know she could be doing. Mrs. Mallard started to realize that she had to start living life her way, instead of behind Mr. Mallard's shadow. There was also similies within this story. One passage that clearly states a similie is "there was a...of victory." (Chopin, 2). This states how she over came the greif and repression of her husband. I think Chopin used this similie because it was a very strong and bold representation of a woman realizing her ability to live life the way she wants to. The other literary term that appeared in the story was irony. The first irony view was the title of the story, "The Story of an Hour." This is ironic because, just by the title, this story must have occured within an hour, but Chopin made it seem like it was a few days at least. This is ironic because Mrs. Mallard only needed an hour to realize that she didn't need her husband to be happy, whereas it would take another wife, maybe a few years to fully recover from a spouse's death. My final view of irony in this story was the ending. The ending was very ironic because of the outcome of Mrs. Mallard. The whole story was a rising action until you got to her death at the end of the story. Chopin made it seem like there was so much for Mrs. Mallard to live for, but when Mrs. Mallard saw her husband, alive, there wasnt anything worth living for to Mrs. Mallard.

In conclusion, I think that Chopin sent a thourough message by writing this short story. The message saying "live life to the fullest while you can." I also think that's a good statement to live by because Mrs. Mallard seemed to be living under constraints that bothered her, but didnt do anything about it. Mrs. Mallard didnt realize that having freedom and having her individual identity is something that you cant take for granted. Chopin used the literary terms, symbolism, metaphors, personification, similies and irony to help the reader view and explain the meaning of this bittersweet story.