Review on The Story of an Hour.doc

学院 系 专业班级 姓名 学号(密封线外不要写姓名、学号、班级、密封线内不准答题，违者按零分计)密封线Review on The Story of an HourAbstract: TheStory of an Houris a short story written by Kate Chopin in 1894. It is a story about the reaction of an elderly woman, named Louise, to the news that her husband was killed in a train wreck. Louises sister comes to her with the news of her husbands demise. Both her sister and her husbands friend expect her to be devastated by the news, but instead she is excited at the thought of being alone and living her life. As Louise and her sister are walking down the stairs Louises husband comes through the door causing her to have a heart attack. In this paper, through analysis the plot and irony in the story to show that the women in the 19th century were reduced to the victims of the then social and marital systems. Yet still they had to repress their own desires to cater to the patriarchal society. And no one would care about their real demands. Mrs. Mallard was just one of the victims.Outline :.Introductionou.The narrative method of the story.The main characters in the story.The irony in the story.Conclusion The short story describes the series of emotions Louise Mallard endures after hearing of the death of her husband, who was believed to have died in a railroad disaster. Mrs. Mallard suffers from heart problems and therefore her sister attempts to inform her of the horrific news in a gentle way. Mrs. Mallard locks herself in her room to immediately mourn the loss of her husband. However, she begins to feel an unexpected sense of exhilaration. Free! Body and soul free! is what she believes is a benefit of his death. At the end of the story, it is made known that her husband was not involved in the railroad disaster and upon his return home Mrs. Mallard suddenly dies. .IntroductionIn the story ofThe Story of an Hour, Mrs. Mallard lived a happy life from the point of traditional view. She loved her kind and tender husband, and other relatives and friends. Her husband was gentle and considerate, so they were deemed to be a perfect match.However, deep inside her heart she felt much inhibited. No one knew, including her husband, of her spiritual demands. Yet she had to make others believe that she was happy and lucky. She had to act the traditional role as a virtuous wife, not for herself, but for others. She lived a two-faceted life. She lived in disguise to hide her real feelings and intentions. The women in the 19th century were required to learn all the social graces (The authoress herself was also required to do so in her puberty.) and encouraged to follow the rules and principles as men wanted them to do. Most women were reduced to the victims of the then social and marital systems. Yet still they had to repress their own desires to cater to the patriarchal society. And no one would care about their real demands. Mrs. Mallard was just one of the victims.The narrative method of the story The story is told in the third person narration. When a story is told in the third person, you will have more description of the setting and plot but the emotions of the characters are limited.In the opening of the story, there is a short description of Josephines reaction when she first heard the news of Mr. Mallards alleged death. The description only tells us that she uses broken sentences. If this was written in the first person, we would only see phrases separated by ellipses . We see that Mrs. Mallard collapses in her sisters arms as she learns of the news of her husbands death. When she looks out her window, the reader is given a description of the outside world. We know that it is spring, the green top trees are visible, and there are patches of blue sky. Also we learn that a peddler is on the street and someone is singing. Again, if this story was told in the first person, she wouldnt have described the scenery outside.A description of Mrs. Mallard is given and how she reacts to the news while alone in her room. If Mrs. Mallard was telling the story, the reader would not have a full description of what she looked like. They would have to imagine how she looks, the expression on her face, and the emotions that she experiences.When Mrs. Mallard says, Free! Body and soul free!, we experience the full effect of her reaction.We find out that she is also ready to experience life without a husband. If this story was written in first person, we might have known what Mrs. Mallards thoughts were on the subject of her husband and her true feelings were toward him. It would have been nice if Mrs. Mallard have told us why she thought of freedom in her grief.The narrator tells us the events of Mrs. Mallards sudden death at the sight of her husband at the door. We do not if she died of a heart attack or a broken heart due to the lost of her new found freedom. If this story was written in the first person, we might have found that out.There seems to more of a description of the place and the events of the story when told in the third person. Readers do not get a full insight of the characters insight or feelings when the story is written in third person. I would have liked to know more of Mrs. Mallards thoughts and feelings of why she wanted to be free.The main characters in the story The protagonist of this story is Louise Mallard. The entire story is centered on her life and the events that occur. Her character type is a dynamic character. She is a dynamic character because in the beginning she was kind of hurt that her husband died, but she slowly started to change her mind and realize she could finally live on her own. Her role of helping the story continue is that she is the main character in the story, and her change in opinion is what the story revolves around.The next character is Brent Mallard. His role with the story is very important, although he is only in the story for a couple of paragraphs in the very end of the story. His character type is a flat character because he is not around much in the story, thus, he does not reveal much at all about his character. He is very important to the plot because the plot revolves around his supposed death.The third character is Josephine; she is Louises sister. Her character type is a confidante because Louise confides in Josephine about how she is happy that she finally can live her life on her own. She drives the plot of the story because Louise confides into her. Josephine is continually checking on her to make sure that Louise is doing well.The fourth character is Richard. Richard is Mr. Mallards best friend. His character type is a static character in my opinion. He is a static character because throughout the whole story he mainly just wants to make sure that Louise is fine. His personality does not change much during the whole story. He drives the plot by being the one that tells Louise the devastating news concerning her husband.Each character portrays an important role in this short story. They all help in their own ways in contributing to the plot. Oddly one character was not even in most of the story but helped the plot progress more than any other character. This story was very good and also very shocking. I did not see the ending coming at all.The irony in the story In the beginning of the story, the author said that “knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husbands death.” From the statement, we could see that Mrs. Mallard had a heart disease and was easy to be hurt mentally and physically, as a result, “great care was taken”. Although the author did not tell us it was who that took care of Mrs. Mallard, we could still identify that it was the people around Mrs. Mallard, including her relatives and friends. So, we could see that Mrs. Mallard life was protected by others and she could just behave passively like a bird in a cage. Form this point of view, her relatives and friends, including her husband, became the obstacles that restricted her freedom and deprived of her rights. And this statement gave us a hint of Mrs. Mallards desire for freedom. In the story, the author showed that after entering the room, Mrs. Mallard generally got rid of the grief, and thought that during the coming years, “she would live for herself” with a “possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being.” However, the change of her feelings did not come easy. Hearing of her husbands death, “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sisters arms.” Then she went into her room, sank in the chair, and was pressed down with a dull stare in her eyes. She felt there was something coming to her and whispered “free, free, and free!” She longed for freedom, but at the same time she did not sure whether “it were or were not a monstrous joy.” What caused her confusing feelings? That was the restriction of social ethics. Mrs. Mallard desired for freedom, but traditional ethics warned her that she could not feel luck to get freedom that resulted from the death of her husband. The end of the story was satiric. While Mrs. Mallard was indulging herself in the sweet daydreams, her sister Josephines knock at the door took her back to the real world. Josephine had thought that her sister locked herself in the room to vent her grief. She worried about that her sister would drive crazy and probably commit suicide on impulse, so she insisted on her opening the door. However, ironically, Mrs. Mallard still wanted to taste the sweetness of freedom a little longer and even began to make a blueprint of her future carefree life, so she dragged on deliberately to open the door for her sister.When she went out and descended the stairs with her sister, she refreshed herself and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of victory. But her sweet dream was doomed to be fulfilled because that the news of her husbands death turned out to be a rumor. When she saw her husband came back safe and sound, she was so shocked, and maybe also so despaired that she couldnt stand the blow brought by the trick God played with her. She was so psychologically weak that her heart disease suddenly attacked her and sent her directly to the no-return road.Interestingly, the doctor arbitrarily declared that she died because of exhilaration, and probably the cause of her death could only be rendered this way. Sadly, even until her death, no one could understand what Mrs. Mallard was thinking about. But her husband Brently Mallard was not in the scene of accident and went home travel-stainedly and composedly. The appearance of her husband leaded to Mrs. Mallards death instead. “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease- of joy that kills.” The doctors, Mrs. Mallards husband and her other relatives believed that it was her excitement of Mr. Mallard coming home that caused Mrs. Mallards death. But in fact, it was Mrs. Mallards despair of freedom after her husbands coming back that resulted in her death.All these show that she was no other than a beast in the cage and she had repressed herself for so long. But now, she could at last live a kind of life she wanted. Though sometimes she felt she had love for her husband, she often denied it. Maybe this kind of love was only out of her responsibility as a wife. So this was the so-called happy marriage! Here the authoress elaborated a vivid picture of the working mind of the heroine as if she were directing a movie. She faithfully presented a series of snapshots like montage to her readers. Though she never commented on it from the moral standpoint, we still can draw the conclusion that the superficially lucky and happy marriage is a castle in the air; that is, it might lack nothing but love. Perhaps Mr. Mallard did love her too, but he often ignored her existence as an individual. In another word, he loved and treated his wife as a pet. And then we can imagine that how many women of that day would suffer the fate of Mrs. Mallard!The common fate of women in the 19th century. Simultaneously it is also a eulogy dedicated to them. Although all Mrs. Mallards efforts and desires end in vain, she echoes the second wom