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The Story of an Hour


            
            
            
             Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" could be interpreted in several different lights. This particular piece gave me a greater sense of appreciation for my current marriage and how I would have reacted if I were to have been put into the same situation as Mrs. Mallard. In my perspective, I believe Kate Chopin wanted each of her readers to compare her story to his or her own relationships as he or she read "The Story of an Hour.".
             The story seems to have been written back in a time when divorce was not an answer to marital dissatisfaction and women were expected to act and react in a certain manner when it came to marriage and the female role within it. Mrs. Mallard found herself to be caught in an awkward situation. She was a woman portraying to be in mourning on the outside, but deep inside she felt as though the cage she had been living in had been opened and she could now roam "free" (11). Her marriage felt very constricting and she felt she was no longer an individual with her own views and opinions. Mrs. Mallard seemed to have felt joy in her heart when she found out her husband, Mr. Mallard, was said to have been killed in a terrible railroad disaster. It is very difficult for me to imagine being joyous, if I were notified that my husband had been killed in an accident because I am happily married.
             It seems that the trauma and stress that Mrs. Mallard's body endured from being pulled into two different directions, caused her to suffer a heart attack. One minute Mrs. Mallard believed to have finally been let free and regained her freedom, which could only be accomplished by someone within the relationship dying. The next moment, she finds herself looking at her husband standing in front of her well and alive and her hope of any freedom crushed. This piece makes you feel a deep appreciation for the time that you live in, a time that women are not expected to fit into a particular mold, especially in a marriage.


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