Story of an Hour

The Story of an Hour In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin it starts off by letting you some of the characters such as her sister Josephine and her husband's friend Richards. They also make sure they to let you know that Mrs. Mallard, the main character in the story, “was afflicted with a heart trouble and that great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death” (Chopin 71). After reading this sentence I began to wonder how she was going to take the news of her husband's death. I thought she was definitely going to take it horribly and that it was going to affect her health somehow. Sure enough as soon as she heard the news “she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone, She would have no one follow her” (Chopin 72). Her weeping was her first reaction when she got the news, but after a while by herself she was able to think about things and see how it could change her life. There is plenty of symbolism in the story one being how she found comfort in her husband's death. “There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul” (Chopin 72). To me the chair is symbolism of the comfort of her husband’s death. The open window is also symbolism because it shows that now she herself is open to the world. She obviously thought about things for a while and was sad, but then she seemed to get excited about her husband’s death. Another is “There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window. Although it had been raining now there was visible patches of the blue sky which is symbolism for the appearance of her new life. “She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was