Discussion Board Question

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Discussion Board Question
In my opinion, the story of an hour by Kate Chopin was the best weekly reading selection. The story is centered on freedom of a woman from a restrictive marriage. The most appealing quality of the story is its use of irony since Mrs. Mallard is self-centered, lack maturity and is a victim of her jactitation. Additionally, the story makes one question their comprehension of love and courtship. This paper will address the human emotions that the story of an hour appeals.
When Mrs. Mallard is informed of her husband’s death, she crumbled due to the forceful impact of emotion. Earlier, Mrs. Millard barely lived believing there was no reason for her existence when she said: “It was only yesterday Mrs. Millard had thought with a shudder that life might be long” (Chopin). The news made her have an outburst of sorrow: “She wept at once with sudden, wild abandonment” (Chopin). Mrs. Mallard appears different from other women since she does not refuse to accept the pain associated with loss. On the contrary, she is awakened from her passiveness by an irrepressible deluge of emotion. The “storm” that reaches into soul eventually saves her from the toleration of a meaningless life, as it becomes the impulse for the enlightenment that leads to her new freedom (Beer).
In that one hour, Louise not only envisions a new identity with her freshly aroused emotions. Chopin shows how feelings have created the moment of enlightenment by playing up the link between her eyes and her emotions: “The vacant stare and the look of terror.

..went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright” (Chopin). The cognizance that metamorphoses Mrs. Mallard into Louise, the person, and that allows her to look beyond the restricting past into a future filled with possibilities is the result of intense emotions. Louise is released from the confinement of the patriarchic culture as she understands through feelings that she can finally live for herself instead of the life that her husband decides for her. Therefore, Chopin has demonstrated how Louise’s emotions have affected her reasoning (Beer). The story shows a strong correlation between emotion and cognition.
Consequently, Louise is painfully shocked to see her husband return home. In truth, he was not on the train and therefore escaped death. Her husband enters through the front door just as Louise, at the end of her short moment of “illumination” at the bottom of the stairs (Chopin). Louise realizes that her husband will never permit self-discovery since he is a member of the patriarchal culture that confined her. Her husband’s appearance crushes her newly discovered freedom, and she realizes it will not last. The shock of losing both her freedom and individuality kills her. Her emotions resonate throughout her body so strongly that it results in a severe physical change and she dies instantaneously (Beer).
In conclusion, I can relate to the implication that emotions are so powerful that they allow clarity of perception. They enable the pleasure of comprehending life’s abundant beauty, without which, as she realizes there is only death. The “joy” that kills Louise is the joy that she does not to resign to the patriarchy that comes with Brently’s return (Chopin). Although, for one short hour, Louise finally experiences true pleasure, meaning, and fulfillment. Chopin shows that observing the world through one’s rational faculty is not as compelling as watching it with the vivacious and intense cognizance that emotion allows.

Works Cited
Beer, Janet. Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Studies in Short Fiction. Springer, 2016.
Chopin, Kate. The story of an hour. Blackstone Audio, 2013.