the story of an hour response

Briana Weems
The Story of An Hour Response
6th-7th period
“The story of An Hour,” is a thrilling story that keeps you guessing the whole time you are reading it. This story is about a woman who thinks her husband is dead and then realizes that it might be the best thing that has ever happened to her. She was a woman that was abused in some time of shape or form and wasn’t happy with the life that she was living with her husband. Once she excepted the fact that he was dead all she saw was opportunities waiting for her and a lot of new doors waiting to be opened.
When Mrs. Mallard first hears that her husband is dead she is devastated and really upset. “She wept at once with sudden, wild abandonment,” this sentence shows her emotions that she was going through at that exact moment. She felt lost and alone and probably like there was no one else there that could make this miserable pain go away. Another phrase that shows her emotions at that moment is, “storm of grief.” She was pored over with grief and shock. Half of her didn’t belief it while the other half was hurting really bad inside.
In this story Mrs. Mallard is also compared to “a child who has cried itself to sleep.” Usually when children cry themselves to sleep it’s because they aren’t ready to go to bed or want something really bad and their upset that they can’t have it or their just exhausted and trying to fight their sleep. The fact that she was compared to a child that was going through one of those problems shows what stage she is in right now. A very hurt and feeling like she has been treated unfairly and the one thing she wants and she even she feels like she deserves have been taken away from.
All of a sudden this grieve stricken woman’s whole thought process changes. “She said it over and over under her breath: free, free, free! The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes.” This woman that been afraid of her husband for so many years had nothing to be afraid of anymore. The person who made her feel like, “with a shudder that life might be long” was finally gone and she didn’t have to worry about the physical or mental abuse she endured anymore. The story seems to portray her husband as being possessive and controlling. “There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature.”
Mrs. Mallard loved her husband to a certain extent. “She had loved him—sometimes.” This shows that even though he was doing things to her, deep down inside she still loved him. Maybe that’s the reason she married him and put up with it for so long, out of the love she has for him. But at the same time all she saw was freedom ahead of her, a life that was joyous and carefree and stress less. A life that she could live for herself and no one else and didn’t have to worry about anyone else and what anyone wanted her to do.
When her husband walked through the door, she died because of the fact she had accepted the fact that he was dead and was ready to live this new life that was waiting for her. She had made plans in her head of what she was going to do and that didn’t include him in it. In the end it was “the joy that kills” because she had lived the life she wanted in her head for that short period of time and there wasn’t anything else to live for.