Response to Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”
...sting to me that she is described as having “a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression” which depicts her as being old for her age. The description of this repression is backed up when Chopin gives us the reason for Mrs. Mallard’s joy which reads thus “there would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature”. I had many questions and conclusions. For instance, it seems as if Chopin is showing us a social situation of the times when women where prisoners of there husbands. It is common knowledge that marriages are not always about mutual love between two people and during the time that Chopin was writing, this was more often the case. Marriage was often about monetary comfort, social status, and acceptance. There are no children mentioned in this story which makes me wonder if there was a sexual relationship between the Mallards. It seems from the description that Mrs. Mallard has been trapped in this marriage for a long time even though she is young. I find it interesting that her first name is only told to us after she hears of her husband’s death and when she feels the most free. Before this point she is referred to as Mrs. Mallard. When Louise married Brently she became Mrs. Mallard, she lost her identity and assumed a new a...