Feeling Louise Mallard example essay topic

The story of an hour'; Kate Chopin's 'The story of an hour'; perceives this seemingly normal middle-class family with an extensive amount of colorful irony. Louise Mallard is a housewife who tries to lead the most standard life possible with her all-powerful husband. The many years of marriage has brought the feeling of emptiness and vacancy into the soul of Louise Mallard. Through her tribulations of marriage, releasing herself and setting both her body and mind free, and the deaths throughout the story irony encompasses and unifies this short story. The tribulations of Mr. and Mrs. Mallard's marriage escalated through the feeling of love. Love seemed to be no longer a never-ending bond between the most important person in their life, but yet a chore, something they regretfully did everyday.

'And yet she had loved him-sometimes. Often she had not-What did it matter!' ; (13) When told of the news or her husband's death, Louise Mallard reacted in the only way she knew how; she completed her 'job'; as the wife by storming into tears and weeping in her sister's arms. She felt no horror or shock, just grief that this person, this " friend'; , had passed away. 'She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden wild abandonment, in her sister's arms.

' ; (12) The irony had finally creep ed through into her life, her inexplicable and " sometimes'; loving marriage had finally come to a sudden halt; Louise Mallard no longer had her dreadful job. The feeling of freedom, the feeling Louise Mallard never knew still existed warmed her body from head to toe. Although the news of someone's husband dying would come as a complete shock to most, Mrs. Mallard looked upon this despairing moment as a time to finally set herself free, and let the feeling of power run wild all over her body. 'She said it over and over under her breath: 'free, free, free!' The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed went from her eyes... She saw beyond that bitter moment [that moment she would weep] a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. ' ; (13) Louise Mallard felt that feeling of power finally with in her grasp now that her husband was out of her life.

She felt her life coming back into perspective, like there was at last a real reason to live. 'Free! Body and soul free! she kept whispering. ' ; (13) A women should feel like she is being set free once her husband embraces her in his arms, but this ironic twist has Louise Mallard being set free once she is just out of her husband's reach.

Perhaps the biggest irony of all comes at the very end of the story. Once Louise Mallard's marriage had finally ended, she had been set free and the feeling of power was finally filling her body once again, yet she dies. Not from her heart disease or the shock of her husband's death, but rather from the shock of her husband being alive. 'Someone was opening the door with a latchkey. It was B rently Mallard who entered... When the doctor's came they said she had died of heart disease-of joy that kills.

' ; (14) Yet, the doctor's didn't know that Louise Mallard didn't die of the joy that overcame her when she saw her husband, but from the dismay and horror she felt when she saw her husband. The one time in her life she is happy, smiling, and enjoying everything that surrounds her, she dies. She dies in disbelief her husband is actually still alive. The feeling of freedom and power immediately escaped her body and once again entered into her husband's hands. Louise Mallard didn't die from the joy that kills, but from the shock that kills.

'The story of an hour'; is a wonderfully written twist of fate that seems unimaginable to most people. The ironic bends and turns it has throughout keeps the reader immensely intrigued, urging them to read on. This story shows the point of view of a women screaming in quiet desperation to get out of her marriage. It proves that love and marriage are not always a glamorous ride your whole life, some things just aren't meant to be.