Escape from Prison

Escape from Prison

The Story of an Hour” is a short story by Kate Chopin that reflects the nature of marriages in the 19th Century. Louise Mallard, the virtuous wife to Brently Mallard, is given the sad news of her husband’s death by her sister Josephine. Louise suffers from a heart condition, and she has to be given the news in veiled hints. Ironically, she only grieves for a short moment and gets emotional arousal by the thought of the freedom that lies ahead of her. A feeling of hope of a new life takes possession of her as seen by how she notices the beauty of nature for the first time in an extended period. At the end of the story, she is shocked and dies when her husband returns home. It is because Brently misses the train and is not involved in the railroad accident. Louise brief moment of happiness ironically ends in death. Her self-assertion after news of her husband’s death represents an escape of an unhappy marriage that was a prison for her

While locked in her room, she sits in a comfortable armchair that faces an open window. She is supposed to be in mourning period which is associated with a dark cloud. Ironically she looks outside and notices the beautiful nature. Jamil argues that marriage for Louise was a “a form of slavery.”(216). It is because it had bottles her emotions for a long time through the repression of her husband to fit in a hollow social convention. Her heart problem is not a physical ailment but a sign of someone that has unconsciously surrendered her heart’s happiness to a culture driven by paternalism. By locking herself in her room and engaging in self-assertion, she breaks away from this culture of paternalism that and prepares herself mentally for a new life of freedom.

The narrator says that Louise is able to see outside her room through the window while locked in it. She sees trees trembling with a new spring life. She notices air outside her room is full of a delicious breath of an oncoming rain. In the streets there is also a peddler crying his wares. In the eaves, there are countless sparrows twittering. These are signs of new experiences associated with the freedom of own reliance. Basch observes that during that period, it was a legal and economic requirement for “dependence of wives on husbands.” (349). Louise believes she has eventually escaped this artificial life that is full of empty conventions and immerses herself into the beautiful and free natural world. The delicious smell of rain in the story symbolizes a smell of freedom from the constricting marriage that Louise was subjected to.

In the story we see that Louise feels something reaching for her from the sky. She does not know what it is.It is elusive and too “subtle to name” (Chopin, 193). It reaches her through secents, color and sound that feels the air. This description fits Dolan’s description that emotions influence pre-attentive processing and attention (1192). We see that despite Louise not knowing what was headed her way, she was prepared to face it. Whatever was coming from nature was the perception or vision of her freedom from her unhappy marriage.

Louise eventually begins to recognize the thing that is coming to possess her. She strives to overcome it with all her will. When she is not able to overpower it, she whispers “Free, free, free” (Chopin, 194). She wonders if it is a monstrous joy that has taken possession of her. It is an inappropriate feeling because her husband has just passed on and she is supposed to be sad. During the 19th Century, most women were forced to stick into unhappy marriages just to fulfill arequired social expectation (Basch, 349). Despite possession of self-aggression by Louise which is a bad gesture given the fact that it is a mourning period, she feels happy and relieved from the prison of a constricted marriage.

Chopin writes that Josephine sympathizes with Louise to open the door. Her mind is carried away by the expectation of the kind of days that lay ahead of her. She pictures the summer days, the spring days and all other sort of days that she will have to herself. She then prays for a prolonged life. The thought of a long life had previously stricken her with fear. Basch argues that during the 19th Century, wives assumed to be material possession by their husbands and they were left with little power in their marriages. From the story we see that each passing day was torturous to Louise because of her marriage. After the sad news of her husband’s death, she feels she has escaped prison and is destined for a better life.

In the last part of the story, we see Louise opening the door for her sister. We are told “There was a feverish triumph in her eyes.”(Chopin, 194). The narrator tells us that Louise behaved like the goddess of victory. It is a representation of struggles she had experienced and she gets an opportunity to break away from them. They descend the stairs and someone opens the front door. She is surprised to find out it is her husband. She is so shocked that she collapses and dies. Brently is late for the train and manages to escape getting involved in the rail accident. This last part shows that Louise is not ready to go back to her imprisoned marriage and she ironically opts to sacrifice her life for the sake of her freedom.

In conclusion, Louise is 19th century woman that believes she has escaped from her constricted marriage after being told the sad news of her husband’s death Josephine. She only grieves for a short while and she becomes possessed by a feeling of self-assertion. Her emotions are aroused and she feels a sense of freedom by the thought of the absence of her husband. She feels that she has eventually broken away from her constricted marriage. She is shocked and dies from disbelief when her husband returns back home alive.