Textual analysis - Essay Example

This narrative is a remarkable tale, and with her discerning language and word use, Chopin provides importance to the audience with every particular expression. Even though it is presented in a quite short description on the beginning of the narrative, one apparently becomes acquainted with the life of Louise Mallard and with her as a symbol, a great deal about the status of women in the time of Chopin. The Story of an Hour is one of the most concise works of Kate Chopin, but perhaps her most revolutionary literary creation: “It was an attack on marriage, on one person’s dominance over another in ‘that blind persistence which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature.

A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime.’ The demand of self-sacrifice was the crime” (Kahle 2010, 11). Louise Mallard, the major character, was suffering from a heart disease. This description is the first one given to the audience about Louise; her first name was introduced after this particular description. It provided her a particular image, a fragile, flimsy, and weak individual. Her sister informed her, in ‘veiled hints that revealed in half concealing’ (Chopin & Knights 2000, 259) of the death of her husband in a railroad accident.

The mention of the ‘veiled hints’ imply that the Victorian society did not recognize women having the ability to handle such terrible news and the cruel truth. And the response of Louise was a deviation to Victorian norms: she remained composed, yet “she wept at once” (Chopin & Knights 2000, 273) and immediately escaped to her room. Instead of anguish an unexplainable happiness flooded her because of her newly found freedom, liberated from the authority and repression of her husband. She repeatedly utters, “Free!

Body and soul free!” (Chopin & Knights 2000, 260) Her sudden bliss represented