Story Of An Hour Analytical Essay

Originally titled, “The Dream of an Hour”, “The Story of an Hour” was written in the era when Social Darwinism had profound effects on disparate fields and disciplines. The short story examines the classic and still relevant look at women’s identities beyond just the domestication issues of modern women. Not only were women confined in their expected role as wives, which included raising children, cooking, and cleaning, but they were also going through a transformation of sorts during the modern era. Men represented oppression. Thus, life free from subservience through “bad circumstances” meant the start of a new life, not the end. In “The Story of an Hour”, Kate Chopin uses the character's inner conflict, health condition, and Mr. Mallard’s supposed death to
Mallard's inner conflict through her emotional struggle. Jennifer Hicks, a literary critic, states that the fact that Mrs. Mallard does not let anyone follow her could also mean that “she would have no one interfere with her life again” (“Story of an Hour” 270). After she endeavors to push away the feeling freedom, she finally allows the monstrous joy of freedom crawl into her. Her acceptance of this feeling is shown through the anaphoric statement, “There would be no one to live for her” and “There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature” (Chopin 595). She can live her own life without being under her husband's oppression. Also, Mrs. Mallard experiences all of the emotion in her room where she is able to “admit or exclude whomever she wants” (May 3908). Mrs. Mallard is finally able to unchain herself from her feeling of