Alkandari 1

Ahmad Alkandari
Instructor Michael Shipman
ENG 121
27 June 2014
Literary Analysis
The Story of an Hour
Kate Chopin wrote a captivating short story named The Story of an Hour that has a
great story line and a surprising end. There are many areas that can be analyzed in terms of
literary meaning, but the most powerful of these is the conflict that was created within the main
character.
The conflict comes when the main character, Ms. Mallard, believes that her husband has
died. Ms. Mallard is sad at first, but suddenly has a newly found discovery that with her death,
comes a new sense of freedom for herself. Ms. Mallard should be feeling sad and grieving for
her husband, but instead, she is enjoying the idea of the freedom she will have without being
married. All the expectations of being a good wife and caretaker of the home would go away
without a husband and Ms. Mallard would be free to do anything she desires. It is a conflict
between knowing Ms. Mallard should have a sense of disparity and grief, yet really feeling
happiness and excitement about the possibilities she will have in the future.
This conflict can be best described as an internal conflict. No one knows what she is
feeling. Ms. Mallards sister is extremely worried that she is making herself ill and the sister has
been locked out of the room so that she may not check on her sister. No one knows the conflict
that the main character is facing and Ms. Mallard is not yet ready to share her feelings with

Alkandari 2
anyone including her sister. That is another conflict which is why Ms. Mallard is keeping her
feelings to herself.
By having the inner conflict within the main character, the author is giving the readers the
opportunity to debate their own inner conflicts and relate to the character. Without knowing the
circumstances of her own life, the reader is drawn in and is routing for Ms. Mallard and her new
found freedom. Readers want her to experience all the things Ms. Mallard has missed out on,
even though we, as readers, do not know what those things are. The readers can assume that her
life is not as Ms. Mallard wished it to be. That is why it is so easy for Ms. Mallard to quickly
find peace and happiness in her husbands death.
This conflict is solely expressed by the inner thoughts of the main character. There is no
dialogue, only internal conversation and realization. The conflict comes from what Ms. Mallard
thinks is right and what she thinks is wrong. However, her desire for freedom and exploration out
weight her feelings of grief. It is not to say that Ms. Mallard does not have any grief, but simply
that the idea of being able to lead a more exciting life is of the upmost importance to her at this
particular moment of time.
Typically in novels and short stories, the conflict comes between the protagonist and the
antagonist, but that is not the case in this story. This is another reason why this is a unique story,
in addition to the unexpected ending. All of the conflict occurs within one character without any
input from any other characters. In a literary sense, this is a unique approach to developing
conflict within a story.
In many ways the conflict leads to irony. The conflict is somewhat resolved in Ms.
Mallards mind, only to find out that her husband is in fact not dead, but standing in her living
room. This is ironic becasue Ms. Mallard had a conflict in which she should have felt more grief

Alkandari 3
than happiness, only to end up feeling more grief because Ms. Mallard was looking forward to a
life of freedom only to have that possibility gone in an instant (Deneau).
Irony would not be created in the story were it not for the internal conflict that the main
character was facing. The conflict is the main point of the story, without it, there would not be
much of a plot and the ending certainly would not matter. It would just be a husband coming
home from work and there is nothing exciting there.
In literary terms, this type of irony can be described as context-determined irony as
described by Shen. This type of irony can only exist if there is a conflict within the story that
leads to textual tension based on the positive meaning of the conflict and the ironic meaning
(Shen). This aspect adds an even more complicated literary aspect to what seems a simple,
straightforward story. Another reason why this story is a classic within American literature.
While in many ways the concept of grief versus happiness seems uncommon, it is likely
that it is not. It is likely that this conflict remains internal, even when it happens in reality, as it
seems inherently wrong to be happy and to look forward to life without ones mate. The conflict
is dealt with internally as a result of this.
This leads to another conflict in whether or not one should share their feelings of
happiness with others. It is anticipated that one will be judged negatively for having any sort of
feelings of elation what so ever. The story did not get into this aspect of the conflict, but it surely
is in the mind of the main character, although not expressed. This is why Ms. Mallard did not
share with her sister her true feelings and the conclusion that she had reached. Ms. Mallard may
overtime, but society would say that within a short time of finding out that ones mate is dead is
not the appropriate time for that.

Alkandari 4
In general, the conflict makes this story powerful. Many people can relate to an internal
conflict of which their true feelings go against why society would expect. This leads for the
conflict to be resolved internally and to remain that way. That is why this story still remains
applicable today. There will always be inner conflict and there will also be unexpected
conclusions and ways to deal with conflict that the rest of society cannot understand or may not
approve of.

Alkandari 5
Works Cited
Deneau, Daniel P. "Chopin's The Story of an Hour." The Explicator 61.4 (2003): 210-213. Web.
1 Apr. 2014.
Shen, Dan. "Non-ironic Turning Ironic Contextually: Multiple Context-determined Irony in
"They Story of an Hour"." Journal of Literary Semantics 38.2 (2009): 115-130. Web.
1 Apr. 2014.