Story of an Hour

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Dealing with personal emotions in Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”

When a person is in a public setting they try to hide their feelings from other people around them. Left alone to deal with their emotions they can be truthful to their self. They feel that while in public they must act a certain way. They are not able to truly express their feelings. A person will be guarded and hold back in order to appear in control. This is exactly what happens to Mrs. Mallard. Upon hearing of the death of her husband in Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard retreats to the privacy of her room to grieve, ponder and rejoice. She runs to the privacy of her room and locks the door so she can be alone to face her emotions.

Immediately when she hears the news of her husband’s death in Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs. Mallard goes away to her room to grieve. It is there where she can let go of her emotions and be alone to grieve in her own way. She sees her chair in the corner of the room and lets her body sink down “pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul” (Chopin 1). As she sits in her chair mourning and grieving the loss of her husband, she realizes that this will not be the last time she will cry. Crying is a normal emotion for Louise Mallard, her life with Brantley was full of grieving and crying.

Gradually Mrs. Mallard starts to ponder the past and her future in Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”. While sitting in her chair something begins to change, she starts to ponder what life is going to be like now that her husband is dead. The man she has lived her life for is now gone.

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There will be no one to rule over her. She can now let herself feel and think. Not only had she been grieving but now she was imaging what the future holds. She now hopes that her days might be long where just the day before she had shuttered at the thought of a long life. She is now dreaming of spring...