Introduction to Conjugal Life in “The Story of an Hour”
Women often think of unconventional ideasas Kate Chopin did by presenting conjugal life in “The Story of an Hour” around a century back.. None would have thought that such an ironic thing that a wife enjoys the death of her own husband could happen. “The Story of an Hour” presents a female protagonist, Mrs. Louise Mallard, who is sensually enjoying the autonomy that her husband’s sudden accidental death has brought to her. She is given the news with great care, but suddenly Brently appears and causes her instant death in doctor’s words “of joy that kills” (Chopin 183). This is how conjugal life in “The Story of an Hour” demonstrates unconventional female thinking of Louise and feelings of freedom, sensual pleasure, and future prospects after hearing the news of the death of her husband.
Unconventional Thinking of Conjugal Life in “The Story of an Hour”
The first unconventional thinking of the time when Kate Chopin wrote this story by presenting conjugal life in “The Story of an Hour” is how a woman could think of freedom after the death of her husband. Louise first expresses a sort of autonomy and freedom when the first wave of sorrow ebbs down. Her sister Josephine has come to break the news. Commenting upon this thinking, Robert C. Evans argues that Josephine has no idea what her sister is feeling adding “She is imagining her autonomy in the days ahead” (194). In other words, she is thinking about her freedom from the conjugal life that Kate Chopin has clearly hinted in the words Louise is repeating “under the breath” as “free, free, free.” (182). This is unconventional to think let mutter when husband’s dead body has not arrived as yet. However, even more unconventional is the way she has felt it.
Sorrows of Conjugal Life in “The Story of an Hour”
As stated earlier that after the first wave of sorrow ebbs down, she instantly looks out of the window to the tree tops to feel “the new spring life” after suspending her “intelligent thought” of the existing reality of the death of her husband (Chopin 182). This is the major sorrow of conjugal life in “The Story of an Hour”. All the sensual moves of Louise betray her feelings of happiness at the prospects. This is rather unbecoming of a woman to feel and show such thoughts even in isolation. Going into the psychoanalytic details of this joy of freedom and thinking, Mavis Chia Chieh Tsen in his article “Joy that Kills”: Female Joissance in Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” that actually Louise wants to “liberate long-suppressed female identity more than anything else” (29). This could be true, for Kate Chopin’s narrator, too, has spoken of the same repression in the lines of her face (Chopin 182). This means that there must have been repression of conjugal life in “The Story of an Hour” that she has expressed her joy about freedom from it. It is entirely unconventional for a woman to think such things at such a gloomy time. Even more unconventional is to enjoy that moment.
Strangeness of Conjugal Life in “The Story of an Hour”
The anonymous narrator has clearly indicated that Louise has loved her husband but the insertion of word “sometimes” is strange, for whether she loves or not, she is a married woman and that it is her duty to love her husband or at least not show that there is no love. At least, this has been a norm during Kate Chopin’s times. Therefore, it seems another unconventionality on Louise’s part that when her sister knocks at the door, “she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window” (Chopin 183). This means that now her happiness has crossed all the boundaries and her freedom and autonomy is complete as none could bar her from enjoying and asserting herself.
Conclusion
Concluding the argument, it can be stated that Kate Chopin’s heroin, Louise Brently displays unconventional behavior not only at the breaking of the news of her husband’s death, but also expressing her feelings and expressions when she is alone in the room. She bursts into tears at first but then it dawns upon her that she is free now she instantly starts ruminating about her future. When she is alone in the room, she feels the arrival of this sense that she is autonomous and this too is unconventional for a woman of that time when her husband’s dead body has not arrived yet. Even the thinking of enjoying life alone could be unbecoming of a woman let alone to make “her fancy … running riot” (183) about the freedom that lies in the future. In other words, Kate Chopin has tried to break the conventions of that time to present her heroin and her conjugal life in “The Story of an Hour”, showing sensual pleasure and happiness over freedom from her seemingly repressive conjugal life.
Works Cited
- Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour,” from The Story and it’s Writer edited by Ann Charters. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015, pp. 181-183.
- Chopin, Kate, and Robert C. Evans. “The Story of an Hour.” Introduction to Literary Context: American Short Fiction, Nov. 2014, pp. 193–198. EBSCOhost, delgado.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lkh&AN=101666196&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
- Mavis Chia-Chieh Tseng. “‘Joy That Kills’: Female Jouissance in Kate Chopin’s ‘The Story of an Hour.’” Short Story, vol. 22, no. 2, Fall 2014, pp. 29–38.