The_Story_of_an_Hour

The Story of an Hour Independent Happiness To understand the meaning behind Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" one would need to understand her past. She was born February 8, 1851 to Thomas and Eliza O'Flatery in St. Louis, Missouri (Haywood 1). After her father’s untimely death in 1855, Chopin was raised by her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother (Ker 1). She attended St. Louis Academy of Sacred Heart, an all-girl school taught by nuns, and graduated June of 1968. With no strong male figure consistently in her life Chopin married Oscar Chopin in 1870, and was widowed in 1882. A couple of years later she sold her plantation and moved her family back to St. Louis (2). At the age of thirty-nine Chopin began her career as strong-willed feminist writer (Haywood 2). In the short story "The Story of an Hour" Chopin questions the need for dependency on another person, particularly men, to fulfill the needs and desire for happiness. Chopin opens the story by introducing Mrs. Mallard, "afflicted with a heart trouble," receiving the news of her husband’s untimely death. Mrs. Mallard bursts story, hour, mrs, mallard, life, happiness, chopin, new, free, window, louis, herself, st, people, out, open, one, need, live, husband, heart, happy, death, writer, untimely, understand, trees, themselves, stood, showing, sees, repression, realizes, rather, opens, now