The first memory I have with this work was in my seventh grade year in my very first fiction class. This short story was one of the first assigned readings I had in that class that I can recall. Since the time I read it, I had only read it again maybe one more time. However, the uniqueness and concept of this piece floated around in the back of my mind like a former muse ever since. Upon my recent rereading of it, I found that there was even more to consider and enjoy than what I had remembered, despite the work being much shorter than I thought.
Written in 1894 by Kate Chopin, “The Story of An Hour” follows a young woman with a heart condition, whose husband had seemingly died in a railroad accident. Her friends and family, as gently as they could, told her about her husband’s death; they were worried that by telling her it would upset her condition. The young woman weeps immediately, but only briefly, before retreating to her isolated room. Her quick moment of grief was replaced by an overwhelming joy, as this new sense of freedom trumped her sadness. Her love for him was not much, and she “would live for herself” from there on out. Her sister eventually got her to come out of her room and brought her downstairs. At the sight of something shocking, the young woman collapsed, and died at that very moment. When doctors came to examine her, they claimed that “she died of heart disease – of joy that kills.”
Right off the bat, the story begins with the unique scene of people trying to tell a woman her husband is dead. It’s a very evocative way to start a work of fiction, and the piece jumps right into the action. An interesting part of the story as well is its unique take on how someone reacts to death. One would assume that you would be sad if your husband was dead, but in this her overall reaction is quite the opposite.
With her husband’s death, the young woman feels the overwhelming emotion of freedom. She was consumed, for a moment, with grief but soon came to realize she wouldn’t be confined to marriage any longer. She was a free woman. I’d say that this is a very successful commentary on how marriage has been used as a way to oppress women, and I definitely think the era in which this work was written plays a role in the portrayed themes. The woman thinks how she won’t be confined anymore to this role, and she won’t be told what to do anymore. She’ll be able to live her life the way she wants, and her perspective shifts dramatically in those very moments when she sits in her room alone.
The descriptions in the prose are very beautiful and paint very strong pictures in my mind, especially during the scenes when the woman is hiding away in her room processing her husband’s death. Something that stood out to me was that while she was alone, she was whispering to herself “Free! Body and soul free!” It’s a small phrase, but it characterizes her entire past relationship with her husband perfectly. As a reader, I don’t feel like I need to know how her husband acted or how their marriage was because what’s not said is emphasized by the little that is said. Small pieces of text like what she was repeating over and over tell me all I need to know, and I think it’s very clever of Chopin that she was able to sprinkle things in like that and not leave me confused.
All within the span of an hour, Kate Chopin was able to capture a variety of emotions in such a short amount of time within the timeline of the piece. With a shocking reveal that caused the young woman to die, and maybe finally have her freedom once and for all, “The Story of an Hour” is a unique and positively intriguing piece of fiction that is worth the read.