Why read The Story of An Hour by Kate Chopin (1894) Essay

Why read The Story of An Hour by Kate Chopin (1894) - Essay Example Mallard, who having a weak heart, mourns the death of her husband, Kate Chopin introduces a passage, which abruptly pictures window’s feelings of relief and freedom and thus this tragic event becomes confusing. Finally, in the exact moment when Mrs. Mallard finds out her allegedly dead husband is alive, she dies of a heart attack. From the critical perspective, the first impression from the story is undoubtedly confusing, however, a more careful analysis reveals that there are many reasons why this literary piece would be important and even necessary to read. Unlike many literary works that are essential descriptive, Kate Chopin’s â€Å"The Story of an Hour† teaches a modern reader to understand historical and social context of the story. This most popular piece of Chopin’s short fiction was written and published in 1984, and the influence of this historical epoch on the story is evident. Chopin’s women are framed and determined by the historical traditions, morals and principles. Women’s lives are limited by kitchens, children, families and occasional genteel routs. â€Å"Story of an Hour† witnesses a woman dawning on the notion of freedom after she learns of her husband’s death. Mrs. Mallard is awe-struck at her own feelings, as she has too lived her life according to the rules of middle-class white womanhood, but she lets the feelings flow nevertheless, and she makes plans for her new life: â€Å"Free! Body and soul free!† (Chopin, par.14). Chopin leaves audience with perhaps her most telling dramatic irony: the gathered community, viewing Mrs. Mallard as the pinnacle of respectable true-womanhood, decides her cause-of-death: â€Å"joy that kills† (Chopin, par.20). As in most of Chopin’s literature, her women who rebel from marriage are not rebelling from their husbands personally; rather, and perhaps worse, according to true-woman ideology, they rebel from the depletion of personal power and selfhood that