The Story of An Hour

Simone Sutton

9/ /09

AP English III

“The Story of an Hour”

Mrs. Mallard has just received news that her husband was killed, but then an hour or so later she not only learns that her husband is alive, she sees him walk through the front door. Any other woman would be overjoyed to learn that her husband is still alive, and would probably respond to this situation with joy and tears of happiness. Mrs. Mallard responds with a heart attack. The doctors believe she died “of the joy that kills”.

Aware of her heart condition, her sister Josephine and friend Richards try to break the news to her a gently as possible. She doesn’t take the news well but, she seems upset. “She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once…” most women who have heard that their husbands have been killed go through a stage of denial. Unable to believe their significant other is gone. Instead Louise immediately believes her husband is dead. She didn’t ask if Richards was sure of the information he gave her. She just started crying. It seems almost like she expected her husband to die, or that she was waiting for something like that to happen. It seemed like she almost wanted it to happen.

She ran to her room to be alone after hearing the news and stared out the window. She had eventually stopped crying and started thinking “There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully”. She felt something inside of her but she couldn’t think of what it was. She could feel it all around her and she could see it in the nature around her. “She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she striving to beat it back with her will”. When she was starting to understand what she was feeling she knew it was wrong, that she should not be feeling this way. And that is why she is trying to fight it back. “When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath.” She wanted to push it back to where it came from, but it’s inside of her now. “Free, free, free.” She is terrified when she hears herself. She’s happy? She’s happy to be free? Her husband just died but she feels liberated. She thinks she is being silly, she would be sad at the funeral wouldn’t she? “She knew that she would weep again when she say the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her” ,”But beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely” . She knew that she would cry at his funeral, and she knew that she would miss him, but only for that moment. The future was looking bright for her; she could be her own woman. The thoughts left her in a “monstrous joy”. It is the kind of joy that makes you happy for someone else’s misfortune. Her husband is dead now she can do whatever she wants. “And yet she had loved him—sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter?!” She didn’t always love her husband. He was in the way of her freedom. “She was drinking the very elixir of life through that open window”. The fresh air coming through the window is a symbol for freedom. She was no longer trapped in a room by her husband’s life. She could escape through the window. Probably for the first time Louise was truly happy.

The twist ending is when her husband walks in completely alive and Louise’s plans for freedom are completely shattered. If her husband is still alive she isn’t free anymore. She dies symbolizing the end of her life of freedom, which is the end of her whole life. The doctors said that she was so happy her weak little heart couldn’t handle it and gave up on her. “The joy that kills”, but it was really the joy that she had that was killed that killed her. (I wrote this in one hour) J