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Josie Burns
Brad Stiles
English B1B
10/01/14
Joy That Kills
When Louise Mallard hears of her husband’s death in Kate Chopin’s “The Story
of an Hour,” she immediately reacts with sobbing grief; however, this grief does not seem
to last long. Once she locks herself in her room upstairs and sits in a chair in front of an
open window, she begins to feel as if something were coming for her from outside. The
open window could easily signify freedom. The events taking place outside are described
in such simple and ordinary ways, yet they make the world sound so inviting. “The
delicious breath of rain was in the air… The notes of a distant song which some one was
singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. . . She
was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was
striving to beat it back with her will” (Chopin 278). This seems to be when she realizes
what the death of her husband really means for her; she is free.
Once she accepts that this feeling coming for her is a sense of freedom she
quickly becomes overjoyed. She would not let herself stop to think about what these
feelings could mean and whether or not they were disrespectful to her so very recently
deceased husband. Louise feels her freedom in the knowledge that these next years will
“be her own” (279). She does admit that her husband “had never looked save with love
upon her;” however, she also reveals that her husband would often bend her will to his
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own (279). This would be considered common knowledge among marriages during this
time; however, Louise has just been freed from this oppression. Her life has become
completely her own again.
One view of the relationship between Mrs. Mallard and her husband could be that
of the average marriage during the late 1800’s which consisted of the “good wife.”
Louise had more than likely been raised to always please her husband and do as he asked.
This does not always lead to a happy life for the wife. Louise even admits in the story
that “she had loved him—sometimes. Often she had not” (279). The death of her husband
truly freed her from the bonds of what may have been an unhappy marriage, for her at
least. She even admitted that “only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life
might be long” (279). This was not a happy woman.
This new sense of freedom hits her quickly. Just a short while after learning of
her husband’s death and grieving, she was “drinking in a very elixir of life through that
open window” (279). Louise does not plan to waste any time with this new life she has
been granted. She takes joy in the idea of “running riot along those days ahead of her”
with “no one to live for her during those coming years” (279).
The events that follow shortly after can be described as nothing other than tragic.
A woman who has gained so much freedom and happiness in such a short period of time
never gets the chance to experience it. The true cause of her death is really left to the
interpretation of the reader. The very first line of the story states that she has heart trouble
so this has to factor in to her death, but Chopin does not say whether or not Louise sees
Brently when he walks into the house very much alive. Some readers may say that Louise
does see Brently and she dies from the sheer shock of seeing a “dead man” standing in
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her doorway. It could also be interpreted as Louise seeing Brently and feeling every last
bit of her freedom being yanked away from her and her weak heart could not take that
pain. Either way the easiest explanation is that she dies of a heart attack. However, Mark
Cunningham does not believe Louise sees Brently at all. In his essay, “The Autonomous
Female Self and the Death of Louise Mallard in Kate Chopin’s ‘Story of an Hour,’”
Cunningham believes that “the resulting emotional strain brought about by her new
understanding of her marriage and her supposed sudden freedom from that marriage” was
too great for her weak heart to handle (Cunningham 48). Cunningham also points out that
this point of view on the story puts an ironic spin on the last line, “a joy that kills”
(Cunningham 48, Chopin 280). Reading the ending from this point of view creates a
slightly less bleak outlook.
If the story is read with the idea that Louise sees Brently walking in the door, her
last second in life was filled with a feeling of so great a loss that her own heart gave out.
That last second could have been filled with so much pain and possibly even anger at
Brently for unknowingly wrenching her freedom from her.
If the story is read with Cunningham’s theory that Louise does not see Brently at
all, the ending still feels almost as sad. Louise never gets the chance to live this new life
that she feels so ready for. She never truly knows freedom; she only gets a taste of it.
Although, her last thoughts were probably happy and excited ones.
In the end, Louise still got her freedom. She never gets to run riot through the
streets or see new spring and summer days, but she is still free from Brently and her
marriage. In death, she has become free from everything.
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Works Cited
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” Mays, Kelly J., ed. The Norton Introduction to
Literature.11th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2014. 278-280.
Print.
Cunningham, Mark. “The Autonomous Female Self and the Death of Louise Mallard in
Kate Chopin’s ‘Story of an Hour.’” English Language Notes 42.1 (Sept. 2014):
48-55. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Vol. 110. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature
Resource Center. Web. 17 Sept. 2014.