Something that I had noticed about Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour was the similarity to her book The Awakening. In her short story, Chopin portrays Mrs. Mallard as a woman who is “trapped†in an unhappy marriage. However, because it’s a short story, the reader is unsure why the Mallard’s relationship is unhappy because the husband doesn’t seem to display any of the stereotypical traits an abusive husband would, so the reader cannot come to a conclusion of their own as to why the relationship failed. In The Awakening, Edna Pontellier is also an unhappily married woman, except this time, Chopin’s character chooses to have an affair with a younger man, therefore defying what women were at that time, submissive to their husbands. Even though this is a book, Chopin still remains tight lipped as to why the Pontellier’s relationship failed, which leads me to believe that Chopin has no faith in the institution of marriage. Instead she chooses to focus on Edna’s affair, her growing agitation with her husband, and her reliance on herself for what she needs. At the end of the short story and her book, both Edna and Mrs. Mallard die. Edna commits suicide by walking out into the ocean, and Mrs. Mallard’s heart kills her. I was a bit confused as to the reason for Mrs. Mallard’s death, but I assume it was a combination of shock and disappointment that her husband was, in fact, alive. Chopin seems to think the only escape to an unhappy marriage is death.
-Lisa Lewis