Themes in The Story of an Hour (Essay Sample)

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Themes in The Story of an Hour
In her short story, The Story of an Hour, Kate Chopin narrates the reactions of Mrs. Mallard after she received an erroneous message about her husband’s apparent death. One of Mr. Mallard’s friends had received the news of his death in a rail accident, but erroneously. Although her husband was still alive in contrast to what the message had claimed, Mrs. Mallard had believed the news. One would have expected her to mourn and cry for her deceased husband, but this is not the case. After receiving the message, Mrs. Mallard gets overwhelmed by a sense of freedom and joy, but still continues to pretend that she is weeping (Chopin, 2011). When her husband eventually appears and clarifies his absence in the apparent scene of the accident, Mrs. Mallard suffers a heart attack and dies. Two of the major themes that are intertwined in this story are death and love.
Under regular circumstances, death is considered to be a blow and an unwelcome occurrence by the contemporary human societies. In The Story of an Hour, however, Mrs. Mallard celebrates the death of her husband. His eventual resurfacing comes as a blow to her previously experienced freedom, such that she dies from heart attack; perhaps as a result of shock and disgust. The author deliberately associates death with joy as evidenced by the last statement in the story, “she had died of heart disease-of the joy that kills” (Chopin, 2011).
The author also attaches an ironic twist in her exploration of love. The romantic relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Mallard is not entirely based on love. Chopin d...