Analysis of Writing Techniques in the Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

“The Story of an Hour’ is a short story in which Kate Chopin, the creator, exhibits a frequently incredible perspective on marriage. Mrs. Louise Mallard, Chopin’s fundamental character, encounters the thrill of opportunity as opposed to the devastation in death after she learns of her significant other’s demise. Afterward, when Mrs. Mallard discovers that her significant other, Brently, still lives, she realize that all desire for opportunity is no more. The shocking development of her husband’s reversed death instantly kills Mrs. Mallard. Distributed in the late eighteen hundreds, Kate Chopin’s Story of an Hour in which the author is clearly expressing oppression in Victorian marriages through the specific literary tool (human vs human conflict); the resolution of the conflict (her vs husband) is proven by her character development before and after his death. This conflict portrayed by the author is important in the story, because we it’s an insight on what went on in early Victorian marriages. Not only being the backbone of the family, and always supposed to act like a lady, it’s no clue that after the death of her husband, she’d obviously feel a sense of freedom. Apart from human vs. human conflict, the reader can also determine that there is human vs. society conflict taking place. This becomes apparent because in early times being an obedient wife made you the ‘perfect wife’. During the Victorian era, a lady was the archive of family ethical status – the person who might not just support the assortments of her kids and spouse, yet in addition their minds. After reading the story for a while we get to see who’s the main characters. The point of the short story was to show that even though marriages may seem like sunshine and rainbows, many times they are full of oppression, loss of identity, and slavery in certain ways.

In spite of the fact that Chopin can connect with Mrs. Mallard’s story, she doesn’t do as such in first person. Chopin uncovers the story through a storyteller’s voice. The storyteller isn’t just a spectator, be that as it may. The storyteller knows, for instance, that Mrs. Mallard, generally, did not adore her significant other. Clearly the storyteller knows more than can be physically observed. Chopin, be that as it may, never tells the reader what Mrs. Mallard is feeling. Rather, the reader must investigate Mrs. Mallard’s activities and words so as to comprehend what Mrs. Mallard feels.

Mrs. Mallard illustrates the deprivation of uprightness that Victorian wives put up with in their society. As Mrs. Mallard transforms into Louise, she represents her fellow female population’s ability to hope for a brighter world outside the confinements of marriage. Upon the newfound knowledge of her husband’s accident and death, her individuality into this incompatible way of life, neither Louise nor Mrs. Mallard could live while the other survived. Now they could be one and at peace. With the transformation from the wife of a man and soul owner of her life, Louise Mallard is unthinkingly destroyed in both her private and social self to escape the world in which she had just transcended. Louise Mallard’s story of an hour surrounding the idea of unfortunate life of the oppressed, despairing, and desperate Victorian housewife. Even though Mrs. Mallard adored her husband, and though he did treat her properly, she still felt a sense of confinement in her marriage. Initially, the reader realizes this in the lines 10-11 when the author says, “When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: ‘free, free, free!’ The reader can conclude that even though her husband has just died Mrs. Mallard looks forward to brighter independent future. One person who might agree with the reader is Jennifer Hicks, director of the Academic Support and Writing Assessment program at Massachusetts Bay Community College, when she said, “Mrs. Mallard, the young “repressed” woman who began to look at her widowhood as a rebirth, similar to the “new spring” outside her window, did not from such excitement. She expired from “a heart problem” — an immediate knowledge that her short lived glimpse into a “life she would live for herself,” a “life that might be extensive,” was not to be.” Textual evidence and a scholarly source can help the main point that the author was trying to illustrate.

Kate Chopin strategically uses specific writing techniques in her short story to get her point across. The construction the author has chosen for this short story fits the topic matter flawlessly. The reader can see that even though the story constructed with short paragraphs, many of which only have like two or three sentences. This writing style helps build up the climax, reading the short story quickly, but the effect it makes is very prevailing. Another occurrence where the reader can use the author’s writing technique to help determine the main theme of the story is how Chopin starts off the short story saying that Mrs. Mallard needs to be approached mildly with the bad news of her newly deceased husband, because she has existing heart problems. Originally this makes the reader feel like she is physically sick, we assume that tough times and Mrs. Mallard simply being older woman with a lot life experience, we conclude that this is the cause of her heart trouble. But after reading the entire story we can only determine that she was wholly sick from being in this overloaded of a marriage. The stress that comes with being the perfect wife, and always having to tend for her family finally ends when she believes that her husband had really died. One person that agrees with the reader would be Barbara C. Ewell when by comparing the two different types of ‘heart problems’ Mrs. Mallard might’ve been going through when she said, “But her illness gradually deepens in significance from a physical detail — a symptom of delicacy and a reason to break the bad news gently — to a deeply spiritual problem”. The more we learn about Brently Mallard’s overbearing nature and the greater his wife’s relief grows, the better we understand her “heart trouble.” Indeed, that “trouble” vanishes with Brently’s death and returns — fatally — only when he reappears.”

Thus referring back to the main conflict in this short story, human vs. human conflict, once the love of her life, the owner of her soul, and her oppressor had perished she was now free to live her own life. The Author also never calls Mrs. Mallard by her first name throughout the entire story, many times we hear the Brently Mallard’s name being mentioned, but whenever when Mrs. Mallard comes up, that’s all we ever get is Mrs. Mallard, and never her first name. This gives the peruser a comprehension on who is the essential head of the household in the marriage, and backs up the possibility that this short story was made to show how Victorian companions felt lesser than their spouses. The author does this to demonstrate that despite the fact that the both a part of the same marriage and ought to be one, they are absolutely not, and Mrs. Mallard has dealt with this for years and years. Chopin does this to show who’s the dominant one in the relationship. Whenever you call someone by their first name it is a sign of deference, by refusing to do this for Mrs. Mallard, Chopin shows the reader that during the Victorian age men in the relationship were clearly dominant. This also tips the reader to conclude that a loss of identity can easily occur in a confined, oppressed marriage.