Blog #7 Assignment-Critical Analysis Essay

Chris Bhairo
Professor Luke
English 102
30 April 2010

The Things We Learn In The Story of an Hour

Biographical criticism helps us gain new insights in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” through analyzing the author’s life. If we look into Mrs. Mallard’s character in “The Story of an Hour” and Kate Chopin’s life we see many resemblances between them. This form of criticism brings us to many conclusions and insights on Kate Chopin and Mrs. Mallard. Knowing Kate Chopin’s husband died we gain a sense of why she wrote this story in the first place perhaps basing it on her husband‘s death. Many of the things that happened in Kate Chopin’s life makes us pay closer attention to particular situations in the story.

One new insight about the story we gain through biographical criticism is Mrs.Mallard liked to be alone. When Mrs. Mallard heard about her husband’s death from her sister Josephine she went to her room and locked the door. She didn’t allow anyone to come inside with her including her sister who was begging her to open the door. “Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door-you will make yourself ill. No, she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window”(317). As we analyze Kate Chopin’s life we see that she also probably liked to spend time alone especially since her husband died and this could be a possible reason why Kate Chopin made Mrs. Mallard’s character seem so lonely in which most of the time in the story she’s locked up in her room grieving.

Another new insight we gain through this form of criticism is Kate Chopin hoped to one day be with her husband when she died because she describes Mrs. Mallard seeing Brently Mallard toward the ending of the story as she dies. “Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella”(317). The way Kate Chopin describes this makes me feel like she really wanted to see her husband again one last time. Through analyzing Chopin’s life we see how surprised and shocked she was by her husband’s death in 1883. It must of really hurt her to see her husband die because she had to raise six children on her own as a widow.

Kate Chopin reminisced a lot for her husband and pictured him in her head constantly after he died. We can say this about her because she describes Mrs. Mallard’s reminiscing in the story. “She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead”(317). There’s a reason she wrote this and it makes me believe that she really cared and loved her husband Oscar Chopin. Kate Chopin must of remembered the day she and her husband got married and their honeymoon together. She probably reminisced the rough and good times they had together. She perhaps remembered the first time she met and feel in love with him and she’s sad to let go of these memories. Based on Kate Chopin’s description of Mrs. Mallard reminiscing about her husband in the story really makes me look closer at this aspect and reflect on Chopin’s life.

Mrs. Mallard gained freedom when her husband died making her more independent. “Free!Body and soul free! She kept whispering”(317). At this point Mrs. Mallard seems a little more relieved but still sad that her husband died. This is probably thesame way Kate Chopin felt when her husband died. Kate Chopin must of felt more like a boss and leader when her husband died. If we analyze her life we see that she was in fact a boss in which she was an entrepreneur and business woman. Kate Chopin was making her own money and managed her life well after her husband died. At this point we see the independence she gained and the reason she describes Mrs. Mallard saying that line of text.

Kate Chopin perhaps had an illness like Mrs. Mallard had heart trouble. “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 husband’s death”(316). This description makes me thinktwice and reflect on Kate Chopin’s life. It makes me believe Chopin really did have some kind of illness. She probably wanted to die from an illness as well because in the story she makes Mrs. Mallard character die in the ending from heart disease.

Kate Chopin disliked marriage and viewed it in a negative way after her husband past away. She must of felt like a loser because her marriage life was shorter than other married couples of her time which caused her to have this negative feeling toward marriage. Kate Chopin possibly had problems with her husband when he was alive and felt happy to be free from them when he died. Why did Kate Chopin make Mrs. Mallard’s character seem more happy when she used the phrase “Free! Body and soul free!”(317) with exclamation points? It makes it seem that Kate Chopin disliked marriage. Another possible reason Kate Chopin disliked marriage is because her husband died so quick in life which made her angry. She probably thought that he would of lived more longer in life but she was wrong. We really don’t know what happened in Kate Chopin’s marriage life but we know she didn’t want to be in one again.

Kate Chopin liked nature and Spring. We can sense this especially when she describes the scene where Mrs. Mallard is looking through the window in her room. “…[T]he tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breathe of rain was in the air…countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves”(316). Kate Chopin uses a very enthusiastic tone when she describes these lines of text in her story. Kate Chopin’s description of nature causes a brief transition in the story and is pretty much the only positive aspect throughout the story. She’s very interested in nature and likes to apply it a lot in her writings. She perhaps describes nature in her writings as a form of motivation and it keeps her writings strong and influential.

Biographical criticism makes us look at “The Story of an Hour” in a different perspective and a whole new way. Many of the things that happened in Kate Chopin’s life reflect upon the story and we can gain new insights for this reason. Analyzing Kate Chopin’s life makes us think more about the things she says in her story and wonder why she wrote it in the first place. We can find many hidden truths about the story from learning Kate Chopin’s background. Reading a story or another piece of literal work without knowing an author’s background makes us miss many things that would be considered very important to someone who understands and knows an author’s background.
　
Word Count:1222 words
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
Work Cited Page
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 6th Compact ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 316-318. Print.