Story Of An Hour

MRS. MALLARD’S “BRIEF MOMENT OF ILLUMINATION”

Mrs. Mallard’s “brief moment of illumination” is a very deep and touching story about a lady who is forced to be married to a man she did not really know and did not love deeply with all her heart, as if she is bound with unhappiness for life! Now she has been liberated. The narrator portrays that was feeling a kind of freedom that she could not describe, but does not know how to deal with it. In this essay matters such as this freedom she was feeling, the little love she had for her husband, the “monstrous joy” she was feeling will be discussed. Matters such as women’s issues and their feelings towards life and death are also included in this essay. These matters are all part of Mrs. Mallard’s “brief moment of illumination”.

“Story of an Hour” was written and published in 1894. This story was written in an era where a lot of questions where risen, about who the dominant sex was and why. This story was written to share with the world how men treated women in that era and how men really felt about women. Women were forced to be with men and were bound to be unhappy…

The biggest question was the “Women’s Question”. What role the women fulfilled in the society and that the female species were the less dominant species. Men were the overriding species, women were forced to do things they did not want to do and were forced to be with men they did not really love and care for. In the “Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard is also force being with a person she did not really know. She never really loved him and cared for him the way she was supposing to. Mrs. Mallard was treated the same as all the women were treated in that era, badly and were abused in many ways if they did not do what they were told. Mrs. Mallard had no freedom and thus she was bound to a relationship… Josephine (Mrs. Mallard’s sister) was the perfect picture of a lady who was not forced to be with someone she did not want to share her life with. Mrs. Mallard was the complete opposite of her sister. Josephine helped her sister to deal with the death of her husband, but she did not want any help or guidance on how to deal with this feeling she was feeling. Mrs. Mallard also had troubles with her heart, so these feelings were not good for her physically.

Mrs. Mallard had no freedom in the time that her husband lived. She never knew what freedom felt like. The smell, the breath, the sense of freedom… When Mrs. Mallard found out about her husband’s death, she acted strangely, a moment of shock, but was it a moment of joy? This was the inner conflict she was fighting inside of her emotions. While she was in her room, alone, she was running through her emotions. The narrator is portraying her emotions in a very clear way. Mrs. Mallard has, before her husband’s death, no power of choice and was bound to one type of life, but after the death she is released and receives freedom, but she does not know how to deal with this sense feeling, a “monstrous joy”. The society assumes Mrs. Mallard is overwhelmed with grief and sadness, while she has locked herself in her room. Mrs. Mallard’s thoughts were screaming in her mind “Free, Free, Freedom!!”, but now she is feeling as if she has abandoned herself and her husband. This brings to the story structural irony. The irony in this context is that she is not feeling the grief she should be feeling, but she is feeling happiness in her heart and in her thoughts, a life without grief and being used and forced, this is the feeling dealt with. This is also the theme of the story, the brief moment that Mrs. Mallard is feeling illuminated. She is seeing a light, “patches of blue sky”, light at the end of dark and bounded tunnel, but the problem she is facing is how to deal with it.

The description of the theme is also connected to what was the place of women in that era and how they were treated as human beings. The narrator also shows us how Mrs. Mallard was forced to be a person she does not want to be, she could not make any choices and decisions of her own. She did not have any other choice, but to love that man as her husband, even though she did not want to. After the death the theme turns to the “brief moment of illumination” Mrs. Mallard had felt. The joy and freedom she felt standing all alone in her room. A new beginning. The irony comes when she sees her husband is alive and she dies… “Joy that kills”.

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