A Story of an Hour

A Story of an Hour The central setting of this article is placed in a railroad disaster, in which the husband of the heroine Mrs Mallard is reported dead, thus begins the whole story. Also from this point or from the mistaken report caused by the setting , the character of the heroine is best exposed. So it serves as a starting point of the plot. Another important setting is the heart trouble that the heroine suffers from. Due to this disease , the story is led to its climax in the end of the story that the heroine is excite to death when her husband comes back safely. It helps a lot for the author to organize the whole story. A third important setting comes to the middle of the article where a beautiful and harmonious scenery of the open square facing Mrs Mallard`s house is describled. Trees, the breath of rain, twitter of the birds, hawking of the peddlers in the streets, the notes of the song from far away etc all compose a free and warm society full of life and vitality, which are contrary to the realistic miserable accident and well reveal the ideal world the heroine dreams of and her light mood of liberation from her husband. The plot of the story falls into three parts. The first part introduces the exposition of the entire story: The bad information of the death of Mr Mallard was carefully delivered to Mrs Mallard who is afflicted with heart disease by her sister and her friend. And she responses to it normally at first hearing. The second part comes to the development of the plot and it describes Mrs Mallard`s psychological activities after deep sorrow of the first response. A sense of freedom and liberation seemingly surprisingly prey upon her, succeeding the sudden saddness and physical exhaustion. And the third part goes to the climax of the whole story . Experiencing the feeling of the overwhelming sorrow and a little excitement free from the control and domination , the vulnerable heroine can`t bear the surprise of seeing her husband come back safely and dies of heart attack. The characters of the story are Mrs Mollard, her friend Rechard and her sister Josphine. Mrs Mallard ,the heroine of the story is a vulnerable , frail and dependent person, a victim of traditional male chauvinism. She is weak both mentally and physically. With heart trouble, she is isolated with any bad or excited news and becomes unable to accept or bear this kind of news. Because of the physical weakness she is taken good of by others and becomes dependent and weak in will. She is always so dependent on her husband that he dominates her and has her lost freedom but she has no ability or strong will to fight against him but has to yield to him . After hearing the death of her husband ,the first response is a sense of dispair due to her dependence , while she becomes calm, the deepest aspiration of mankind for freedom arises in her heart. However when she sees her husband back safely, the frailty beat her down thouroghly. Rechard and Josphine are both traditional characters with conventional virtue, they perform their duty very well as a sister and a friend. The theme of the story can be read as one describing the vulnerability of women, which always has them fallen into victims of the male chauvinism.. Although the just part of the society representing by Rechard and Josphine always protect them representing by Mrs Mallard, they can`t avoid the harm or injury forced by the feudal and unfair ideology and social system. Mrs Mallard is weak both in body and mind. She is seen as a frail one and is protected by surrounding people but is repressed by the invisible feudal male chauvinism. She including the whole society just takes it for granted and after hearing the bad news when she views the unity of human and nature she begins to thirst for freedom and long for living for herself .Just at this time the report turns out to be false and back to reality that her husband is still live the vulnerability inherent defeated her totally to death. By Ning Hongqin Dec,3rd 2005