THE STORY OF AN HOUR ANNOTATIONS FULL VERSION

Although Richards tries to keep Louise’s heart from shock by shielding her husband from view, Louise dies suddenly, which the doctors later attribute to “heart disease-of the joy that kills. However, as she comes downstairs, the front door opens to reveal her husband, who had not been killed by the accident at all.

After praying that her life is long-lived, Louise agrees to come out.

In the meantime, Josephine sits at Louise’s door, coaxing her to come out because she is worried about Louise’s heart condition. She keeps repeating the word “free” as she comes to terms with what her husband’s death means for her life. She realizes that, although she will be sad about her husband (“she had loved him-sometimes,” Chopin writes), Louise is excited for the opportunity to live for herself. At first she’s scared to admit it, but Louise quickly finds peace and joy in her admission. As Louise processes the news of her husband’s death, she realizes something wonderful and terrible at the same time: she is free. Upon hearing the news of her husband’s death, Louise is grief-stricken, locks herself in her room, and weeps.įrom here, the story shifts in tone. Richards had been at the newspaper office when the news broke, and he takes Josephine with him to break the news to Louise since they’re afraid of aggravating her heart condition. Louise Mallard is at home when her sister, Josephine, and her husband’s friend, Richards, come to tell her that her husband, Brently Mallard, has been killed in a railroad accident. We recommend you read it again before diving into our analyses in the next section!įor those who just need a refresher, here’s “The Story of an Hour” summary:

THE STORY OF AN HOUR ANNOTATIONS FULL VERSION

This section includes a quick recap, but you can find “The Story of an Hour” PDF and full version here. If it’s been a little while since you’ve read Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” it can be hard to remember the important details.

Analysis of the key story elements in “The Story of an Hour,” including themes, characters, and symbolsīy the end of this article, you’ll have an expert grasp on Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour.” So let’s get started!.

A brief history of Kate Chopin and America the 1890s.

In this guide to Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” we’ll discuss: It was in this world that author Kate Chopin wrote and lived, and many of the issues of the period are reflected in her short story, “The Story of an Hour.” Now, over a century later, the story remains one of Kate Chopin’s most well-known works and continues to shed light on the internal struggle of women who have been denied autonomy. While this world might sound like the present day, it also describes America in the 1890s. Although her work was relatively unpopular at the time of her death, her legacy as both an important American novelist in her own right, and one of the first female authors to address gender inequality, has only grown.Imagine a world where women are fighting for unprecedented rights, the economic climate is unpredictable, and new developments in technology are made every year. Chopin died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage in 1904, leaving behind three novels, two collections of short stories, and one play.

Her writing often championed the kind of female independence she had become notorious for in Cloutierville her first novel, At Fault, for instance, controversially examined the idea of divorce and paved the way for the fearless independence of her later works such as The Awakening, which was critiqued and banned by libraries and bookstores alike. Louis to live with her mother and began writing short stories for popular American magazines. Eventually, in 1884, she moved back to St. This move went against what was considered normal and acceptable for women at the time, and Chopin was widely judged by her surrounding community. There, her husband owned and ran a general store until he died in 1882, at which point Chopin rather unconventionally took over the shop’s operation, thereby becoming a self-sufficient widow. Together they had six children and lived in New Orleans until eventually moving to the French town of Cloutierville, Louisiana in 1879. At the age of 20, Chopin married the son of a successful family in the cotton industry. An Irish immigrant, her father was a prosperous businessman, while her mother came from the well-respected French community of St. Louis, Missouri by well-off, socially established parents. Born Catherine O’Flaherty in 1850, Kate Chopin was raised in St.

The story of an hour annotations