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My Story of an Hour

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Submitted By chrisym73
Words 787
Pages 4
Christina M Miller
Keith O’Neill
English 102 (Intro to Literature)
19 September 2014 The Story of an Hour
In the story of an Hour we encounter a Victorian housewife that shows a reader in the present day that many feelings and self- expression have always been present. Mrs. Mallard a housewife in the Victorian era in the beginning of the story is told to have a slight heart issue which seems to play into the factor of how her sister and a friend of her husband decide how they will inform her of the news that her husband has been identified as one of the dead following a railroad accident.
Mrs. Mallard takes the news of the death of her husband differently than many would expect. While she retreats to her room alone to gather her thoughts she starts to notice the beauty of what surrounds her. She seems to almost feel slightly bad for not grieving as she thought she was expected to. At this period in time women were seen as the weaker of the sexes and were expected to mourn their husbands until their own death. Another option being remarrying losing any right to their own property to their new husbands.
Mrs. Mallard started to get an overwhelming feeling of freedom. She knew she could live on her own and did not need to feel the constraints of an unhappy marriage any longer. She daydreamed of a life filled with days of doing as she pleased without needing permission from her husband. While she was daydreaming she was actually able to enjoy the nature and beauty of the outdoors that she had not admired for so long. Although she felt free and happy she still had the feeling of sadness for a marriage that the she had grown so accustomed to and for a husband who although was not very passionate or care of her immediate and human needs but lacked in the emotional kind of love that she had needed as a woman. As she sits daydreaming in her upstairs

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