Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour

In "The Story of an Hour" multiple tragic things happen that can relate it to the story of Romeo and Juliet.  Mrs. Mallard was an elderly woman that had heart problems and was ill to begin with even before she received tragic news of her husbands suspected death (Chopin).  Mr. Mallards suspected death could be related to the suspected death of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet.  When Mrs. Mallard finds out about his suspected death she then cries and weeps until her husband walks in and she has a heart attack (Chopin).  Its kind of like Juliet waking up in Romeo an Juliet and finding her lover dead at her side and her killing her self in astonishment (Shakespeare).

Ok, so what I have said about the Mr. and Mrs. Mallard story has probably been kinda confusing so I am going to explain things a little better.  Mr. Mallard was suspected dead in a train accident, Mrs. Mallard cried, Mr. Mallard showed up since the suspected death was false, Mrs. Mallard died of a heart attack in shock, end of story (Chopin).  Kate Chopin's story relates to writings of Emerson and Thoreau because both Emerson and Thoreau were tranceldentalist writers and trancidentalism includes femanism.  Kate's story is very femanist as the main character, Mrs. Mallard, realizes that her husband is dead and she is free when in reality he was alive and she died of joy since she would rather be dead and happy then alive and imprisoned to her husband.  It was a tragic story and a happy story mixed together in one.  It signified how women felt they were treated and how her life would have been changed forever.  The way Kate mixed tragedy, joy, happiness, and history together is what I think made this story so popular.

I would like to thank Chris Moore for more thoroughly explaining this story to me because without his help I would have never realized how Mrs. Mallard was actually joyed about her suspected husbands death.




Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." PBS. PBS. Web. 23 Feb. 2012. 

Kate Chopin. "The Story of an Hour"   The Facts On File Companion to the American Short Story, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 23 Feb. 12.

Shakespeare, William. "Romeo and Juliet: Entire Play." The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. The Tech-MIT Newspaper, 1993. Web. 23 Feb. 2012.