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Kate Chopin’s “ The Story of an Hour” deals with the wide gaps between the realms of individual conscience and societal norms. The points of convergence where these two realms are at conflict emerge through the subtle nuances of the story. Chopin depicts the usually unexplored territories of power and freedom in man-woman relationships and how they are linked to social expectations. A female protagonist is positioned as a cultural construct, since she behaves in accordance with the time and space that had shaped her. But she is a misfit in her society as well, in her deeper personal existence.
The inner thoughts of the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, form the leitmotif of story. News of a railroad accident in which Mr. Brently Mallard had supposedly died and what happens in the span of an hour afterwards form the plot. Chopin focuses on Mrs. Mallard’s unique psyche through the narrative technique of interior monologue. Her sister Josephine and Mr. Mallard’s friend Richards break the news of Mr. Mallard’s death as gently as possible. The readers are also led to believe that the news could have a devastating effect on her. She is described as responding instantaneously to the news by weeping at once, “ with wild abandonment”. Contrary to many women who would have remained in a paralyzed inability to accept the news and its significance, she did let her emotions flow on a stretch. However, she went alone to her room once the storm of grief had subsided. No one was allowed to follow her there. The time she spent alone in her room happens to be the turning point in the story. She continued sobbing absent mindedly for a while, in a stupor-like condition. But she kept on staring outside through the open window, supposedly in a “ suspension of intelligent thought”. She realized something coming to her, but was unable to realize it fully. Her demeanor changed dramatically as she realized that it is freedom that is awaiting her. She got very excited at this prospect. Even as she reflected on the necessity to weep once her husband’s dead body arrives, the state of excitement refuses to fade away from her essence of being. She thought of love as something that existed only occasionally in her relationship with her husband. Love seemed like an unsolved mystery to her while she was swept away by a possession of self-assertion. She perceives that she is free altogether now, body and soul.
The twist in the end reveals that the information regarding the death of Mr. Mallard was baseless, and he turns up unexpectedly, to the surprise of all. Josephine lets of a shriek of horror and Richard tries in vain to block him from the view of his wife. The last sentence tells what happened to Mrs. Mallard: “ When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease–of the joy that kills”. The “ joy” mentioned here has multiple layers of meaning to the reader who are allowed to get a glance at her real state of mind when she was alone at her room. For those who are unaware of this, she could have died out of the sudden joy at seeing her husband alive. But the joy which is spoken of here is her extreme sense of freedom and happiness in the lonely moments. It could be this joy that led her to a shock when she saw that her husband was not at all dead and gone. The sudden disappointment and the feeling that she is robbed of her freedom once again which had apparently stopped her heart.
Mrs. Mallard fails to break free from the socio-cultural aspects that have contributed towards the making of her essence. She has to resort to the lonely moments in her closed room to revel at the secret joy that the death of her husband brings. She is aware of her social responsibility to appear grief-stricken, but her heart longs for the days without her husband in her life. She fails to break free from the social norms that force her to keep on living with her husband. The only option for her would have been his death, but when the news of his death turns out to be a mistake, she fails to carry on her life any more.