SSRJ #1: Chopin

Chopin’s short story “The Story of an Hour”, the telling of a young woman’s reactions to the sudden news of her husband’s death, brought out several emotions in me. As I read in the beginning when the terrible news was being revealed to her I briefly recalled a time in my life when the news of a loved one was revealed to me and my reaction at that moment. My mother and brother both died suddenly within two months of each other in 2001. The pain and anguish associated with that experience was a devastating blow to my heart, soul and spirit. The dazed and numb feeling of hearing such news was like life was suspended for a short while so that my mind could catch up with what just happened. It took months for the grief to ease, and the sting is still there as it is with all that lose a loved one. As I read of Mrs. Mallards reaction to the death of her husband she did not have that same feeling of loss and pain, she contrarily had a response that was a short lived period of weeping before she realized that her husband’s death may have opened up a world of opportunity for her, not a life of grieving.
In the very first sentence of the story the author straight away informs us that Mrs. Mallard “was afflicted with a heart trouble”. This was an interesting insight to reveal so quickly about Mrs. Mallard. As you read the ending of the story, you realize that irony and foreshadowing was in play there. When she died in the ending of the story they stated that she died from “heart disease”, not “heart trouble”. That is why I believe her “heart trouble” was not one of a physical nature; it was one of an emotional nature, one who had a hardened heart. She feels as if she has spent years in emotional chains and now she is free from her repressor. The death of Mr. Mallard became a celebratory experience for her, one in which she maybe envisioned life free from this so called repression. I could comprehend her feeling of this sudden freedom but you would envision that emotion coming on a newly widowed wife at a later time, not minutes after hearing this terrible information. The mention of “spring” and “blue skies” gives me an indication of her thinking of a fresh and lovelier beginning. The story gives little insight to the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Mallard other than her remark about her describing him as “the face that had never looked save with love upon her” and the authors description of the physical appearance of Mrs. Mallard as having a “calm face, whose lines bespoke repression”. During that time in our nation’s history, women had not been given the right to vote and many did not have careers, so they were caretakers of the house and children for the most part. I believe the author could have been attempting to speak for many of the women in that day. I do not associate her telling of this story with the struggles of women in those days though, as many women struggled for equality but still maintained a caring and reverent relationship with their husband. I see it as a single relationship gone wrong, not a symbol of women’s strife for equality. Interestingly the author did not give much description of Mr. Mallard. Leaving out the details of the marriage prior to this happening leaves it to our imagination to determine what sort of marriage it was.
Remember the title “The Story of an Hour”; all this took place within an hour, not a day, not a week, not a month, but one hour. It reminds me that life can change for you in a short period of time. One minute you could be eagerly anticipating a new beginning and then suddenly you could be departed from this life. Even though Mrs. Mallard felt she was being repressed, and by all accounts maybe she was, but her reaction to her husband’s death sealed her fate. After all the story stated that “she did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her.”
Can we think of our reactions to bad things happening to people we despise or who has repressed people such as when Saddam Hussein was executed, were you glad that it happened? Did you feel a sense of relief when it happened? Can we actually control our reaction to those situations? Could Mrs. Mallard control her emotions when she heard of her husband’s death?
Jeff Cooley