the story of an hour meaning analysis

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Imagine a world where women are fighting for unprecedented rights, the economic climate is unpredictable, and new developments in technology are made every year. While this world might sound like the present day, it also describes America in the 1890s . 

It was in this world that author Kate Chopin wrote and lived, and many of the issues of the period are reflected in her short story, “The Story of an Hour.” Now, over a century later, the story remains one of Kate Chopin’s most well-known works and continues to shed light on the internal struggle of women who have been denied autonomy.

In this guide to Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” we’ll discuss:

• A brief history of Kate Chopin and America the 1890s
• “The Story of an Hour” summary
• Analysis of the key story elements in “The Story of an Hour,” including themes, characters, and symbols

By the end of this article, you’ll have an expert grasp on Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour.” So let’s get started!

“The Story of an Hour” Summary

If it’s been a little while since you’ve read Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” it can be hard to remember the important details. This section includes a quick recap, but you can find “The Story of an Hour” PDF and full version here . We recommend you read it again before diving into our analyses in the next section! 

For those who just need a refresher, here’s “The Story of an Hour” summary: 

Mrs. Louise Mallard is at home when her sister, Josephine, and her husband’s friend, Richards, come to tell her that her husband, Brently Mallard, has been killed in a railroad accident . Richards had been at the newspaper office when the news broke, and he takes Josephine with him to break the news to Louise since they’re afraid of aggravating her heart condition. Upon hearing the news of her husband’s death, Louise is grief-stricken, locks herself in her room, and weeps.

From here, the story shifts in tone. As Louise processes the news of her husband’s death, she realizes something wonderful and terrible at the same time: she is free . At first she’s scared to admit it, but Louise quickly finds peace and joy in her admission. She realizes that, although she will be sad about her husband (“she had loved him—sometimes,” Chopin writes), Louise is excited for the opportunity to live for herself. She keeps repeating the word “free” as she comes to terms with what her husband’s death means for her life. 

In the meantime, Josephine sits at Louise’s door, coaxing her to come out because she is worried about Louise’s heart condition. After praying that her life is long-lived, Louise agrees to come out. However, as she comes downstairs, the front door opens to reveal her husband, who had not been killed by the accident at all. Although Richards tries to keep Louise’s heart from shock by shielding her husband from view, Louise dies suddenly, which the doctors later attribute to “heart disease—of the joy that kills .”

Kate Chopin, the author of "The Story of an Hour," has become one of the most important American writers of the 19th century. 

The History of Kate Chopin and the 1890s

Before we move into “The Story of an Hour” analysis section, it’s helpful to know a little bit about Kate Chopin and the world she lived in. 

A Short Biography of Kate Chopin

Born in 1850 to wealthy Catholic parents in St. Louis, Missouri, Kate Chopin (originally Kate O’Flaherty) knew hardship from an early age. In 1855, Chopin lost her father, Thomas, when he passed away in a tragic and unexpected railroad accident. The events of this loss would stay with Kate for the rest of her life, eventually becoming the basis for “The Story of an Hour” nearly forty years later.

Chopin was well-educated throughout her childhood , reading voraciously and becoming fluent in French. Chopin was also very aware of the divide between the powerful and the oppressed in society at the time . She grew up during the U.S. Civil War, so she had first-hand knowledge of violence and slavery in the United States. 

Chopin was also exposed to non-traditional roles for women through her familial situation. Her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother chose to remain widows (rather than remarry) after their husbands died. Consequently, Chopin learned how important women’s independence could be, and that idea would permeate much of her writing later on. 

As Chopin grew older, she became known for her beauty and congeniality by society in St. Louis. She was married at the age of nineteen to Oscar Chopin, who came from a wealthy cotton-growing family. The couple moved to New Orleans, where they would start both a general store and a large family. (Chopin would give birth to seven children over the next nine years!) 

While Oscar adored his wife, he was less capable of running a business. Financial trouble forced the family to move around rural Louisiana. Unfortunately, Oscar would die of swamp fever in 1882 , leaving Chopin in heavy debt and with the responsibility of managing the family’s struggling businesses. 

After trying her hand at managing the property for a year, Chopin conceded to her mother’s requests to return with her children to St. Louis. Chopin’s mother died the year after. In order to support herself and her children, Kate began to write to support her family. 

Luckily, Chopin found immediate success as a writer. Many of her short stories and novels—including her most famous novel, The Awakening— dealt with life in Louisiana . She was also known as a fast and prolific writer, and by the end of the 1900s she had written over 100 stories, articles, and essays. 

Unfortunately, Chopin would pass away from a suspected cerebral hemorrhage in 1904, at the age of 54 . But Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and other writings have withstood the test of time. Her work has lived on, and she’s now recognized as one of the most important American writers of the 19th century. 

American life was undergoing significant change in the 19th century. Technology, culture, and even leisure activities were changing. 

American Life in the 1890s

“The Story of an Hour” was written and published in 1894, right as the 1800s were coming to a close. As the world moved into the new century, American life was also changing rapidly. 

For instance, t he workplace was changing drastically in the 1890s . Gone were the days where most people were expected to work at a trade or on a farm. Factory jobs brought on by industrialization made work more efficient, and many of these factory owners gradually implemented more humane treatment of their workers, giving them more leisure time than ever.

Though the country was in an economic recession at this time, technological changes like electric lighting and the popularization of radios bettered the daily lives of many people and allowed for the creation of new jobs. Notably, however, work was different for women . Working women as a whole were looked down upon by society, no matter why they found themselves in need of a job. 

Women who worked while they were married or pregnant were judged even more harshly. Women of Kate Chopin’s social rank were expected to not work at all , sometimes even delegating the responsibility of managing the house or child-rearing to maids or nannies. In the 1890s, working was only for lower class women who could not afford a life of leisure .

In reaction to this, the National American Woman Suffrage Association was created in 1890, which fought for women’s social and political rights. While Kate Chopin was not a formal member of the suffragette movements, she did believe that women should have greater freedoms as individuals and often talked about these ideas in her works, including in “The Story of an Hour.” 

Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" a short exploration of marriage and repression in America.

“The Story of an Hour” Analysis

Now that you have some important background information, it’s time to start analyzing “The Story of an Hour.”

This short story is filled with opposing forces . The themes, characters, and even symbols in the story are often equal, but opposite, of one another. Within “The Story of an Hour,” analysis of all of these elements reveals a deeper meaning.

“The Story of an Hour” Themes

A theme is a message explored in a piece of literature. Most stories have multiple themes, which is certainly the case in “The Story of an Hour.” Even though Chopin’s story is short, it discusses the thematic ideas of freedom, repression, and marriage. 

Keep reading for a discussion of the importance of each theme! 

Freedom and Repression

The most prevalent theme in Chopin’s story is the battle between freedom and “repression.” Simply put , repression happens when a person’s thoughts, feelings, or desires are being subdued. Repression can happen internally and externally. For example, if a person goes through a traumatic accident, they may (consciously or subconsciously) choose to repress the memory of the accident itself. Likewise, if a person has wants or needs that society finds unacceptable, society can work to repress that individual. Women in the 19th century were often victims of repression. They were supposed to be demure, gentle, and passive—which often went against women’s personal desires. 

Given this, it becomes apparent that Louise Mallard is the victim of social repression. Until the moment of her husband’s supposed death, Louise does not feel free . In their marriage, Louise is repressed. Readers see this in the fact that Brently is moving around in the outside world, while Louise is confined to her home. Brently uses railroad transportation on his own, walks into his house of his own accord, and has individual possessions in the form of his briefcase and umbrella. Brently is even free from the knowledge of the train wreck upon his return home. Louise, on the other hand, is stuck at home by virtue of her position as a woman and her heart condition. 

Here, Chopin draws a strong contrast between what it means to be free for men and women. While freedom is just part of what it means to be a man in America, freedom for women looks markedly different. Louise’s life is shaped by what society believes a woman should be and how a wife should behave. Once Louise’s husband “dies,” however, she sees a way where she can start claiming some of the more “masculine” freedoms for herself. Chopin shows how deeply important freedom is to the life of a woman when, in the end, it’s not the shock of her husband’s return of her husband that kills Louise, but rather the thought of losing her freedom again.

Marriage as a “The Story of an Hour” theme is more than just an idyllic life spent with a significant other. The Mallard’s marriage shows a reality of 1890s life that was familiar to many people. Marriage was a means of social control —that is to say, marriage helped keep women in check and secure men’s social and political power. While husbands were usually free to wander the world on their own, hold jobs, and make important family decisions, wives (at least those of the upper class) were expected to stay at home and be domestic. 

Marriage in Louise Mallard’s case has very little love. She sees her marriage as a life-long bond in which she feels trapped, which readers see when she confesses that she loved her husband only “sometimes.” More to the point, she describes her marriage as a “powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature.” In other words, Louise Mallard feels injustice in the expectation that her life is dictated by the will of her husband.

Like the story, the marriages Kate witnessed often ended in an early or unexpected death. The women of her family, including Kate herself, all survived their husbands and didn’t remarry. While history tells us that Kate Chopin was happy in her marriage, she was aware that many women weren’t. By showing a marriage that had been built on control and society’s expectations, Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” highlights the need for a world that respected women as valuable partners in marriage as well as capable individuals.

While this painting by Johann Georg Meyer wasn't specifically of Louise Mallard, "Young Woman Looking Through a Window" is a depiction of what Louise might have looked like as she realized her freedom.

"The Story of an Hour" Characters

The best stories have developed characters, which is the case in “The Story of an Hour,” too. Five characters make up the cast of “The Story of an Hour”:

Louise Mallard

Brently mallard.

• The doctor(s)

By exploring the details of each character, we can better understand their motivations, societal role, and purpose to the story.

From the opening sentence alone, we learn a lot about Louise Mallard. Chopin writes, “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.”

From that statement alone, we know that she is married, has a heart condition, and is likely to react strongly to bad news . We also know that the person who is sharing the bad news views Louise as delicate and sensitive. Throughout the next few paragraphs, we also learn that Louise is a housewife, which indicates that she would be part of the middle-to-upper class in the 1890s. Chopin also describes Louise’s appearance as “young,” “fair, calm face,” with lines of “strength.” These characteristics are not purely physical, but also bleed into her character throughout the story.

Louise’s personality is described as different from other women . While many women would be struck with the news in disbelief, Louise cries with “wild abandonment”—which shows how powerful her emotions are. Additionally, while other women would be content to mourn for longer, Louise quickly transitions from grief to joy about her husband’s passing.  

Ultimately, Chopin uses Louise’s character to show readers what a woman’s typical experience within marriage was in the 1890s. She uses Louise to criticize the oppressive and repressive nature of marriage, especially when Louise rejoices in her newfound freedom. 

Josephine is Louise’s sister . We never hear of Josephine’s last name or whether she is married or not. We do know that she has come with Richards, a friend of Brently’s, to break the news of his death to her sister. 

When Josephine tells Louise the bad news, she’s only able to tell Louise of Brently’s death in “veiled hints,” rather than telling her outright. Readers can interpret this as Josephine’s attempt at sparing Louise’s feelings. Josephine is especially worried about her sister’s heart condition, which we see in greater detail later as she warns Louise, “You will make yourself ill.” When Louise locks herself in her room, Josephine is desperate to make sure her sister is okay and begs Louise to let her in. 

Josephine is the key supporting character for Louise, helping her mourn, though she never knows that Louise found new freedom from her husband’s supposed death . But from Josephine’s actions and interactions with Louise, readers can accurately surmise that she cares for her sister (even if she’s unaware of how miserable Louise finds her life). 

Richards is another supporting character, though he is described as Brently’s friend, not Louise’s friend. It is Richards who finds out about Brently Mallard’s supposed death while at the newspaper office—he sees Brently’s name “leading the list of ‘killed.’” Richards’ main role in “The Story of an Hour” is to kick off the story’s plot. 

Additionally, Richard’s presence at the newspaper office suggests he’s a writer, editor, or otherwise employee of the newspaper (although Chopin leaves this to readers’ inferences). Richards takes enough care to double-check the news and to make sure that Brently’s likely dead. He also enlists Josephine’s help to break the news to Louise. He tries to get to Louise before a “less careful, less tender friend” can break the sad news to her, which suggests that he’s a thoughtful person in his own right. 

It’s also important to note is that Richards is aware of Louise’s heart condition, meaning that he knows Louise Mallard well enough to know of her health and how she is likely to bear grief. He appears again in the story at the very end, when he tries (and fails) to shield Brently from his wife’s view to prevent her heart from reacting badly. While Richards is a background character in the narrative, he demonstrates a high level of friendship, consideration, and care for Louise. 

Brently Mallard would have been riding in a train like this one when the accident supposedly occurred.

  Mr. Brently Mallard is the husband of the main character, Louise. We get few details about him, though readers do know he’s been on a train that has met with a serious accident. For the majority of the story, readers believe Brently Mallard is dead—though the end of “The Story of an Hour” reveals that he’s been alive all along. In fact, Brently doesn’t even know of the railroad tragedy when he arrives home “travel-stained.”

  Immediately after Louise hears the news of his death, she remembers him fondly. She remarks on his “kind, tender hands” and says that Brently “never looked save with love” upon her . It’s not so much Brently as it’s her marriage to him which oppresses Louise. While he apparently always loved Louise, Louise only “sometimes” loved Brently. She constantly felt that he “impose[d] a private will” upon her, as most husbands do their wives. And while she realizes that Brently likely did so without malice, she also realized that “a kind intention or a cruel intention” makes the repression “no less a crime.” 

Brently’s absence in the story does two things. First, it contrasts starkly with Louise’s life of illness and confinement. Second, Brently’s absence allows Louise to imagine a life of freedom outside of the confines of marriage , which gives her hope. In fact, when he appears alive and well (and dashes Louise’s hopes of freedom), she passes away. 

The Doctor(s)

Though the mention of them is brief, the final sentence of the story is striking. Chopin writes, “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease—of the joy that kills.” Just as she had no freedom in life, her liberation from the death of her husband is told as a joy that killed her.

In life as in death, the truth of Louise Mallard is never known. Everything the readers know about her delight in her newfound freedom happens in Louise’s own mind; she never gets the chance to share her secret joy with anyone else.

Consequently, the ending of the story is double-sided. If the doctors are to be believed, Louise Mallard was happy to see her husband, and her heart betrayed her. And outwardly, no one has any reason to suspect otherwise. Her reaction is that of a dutiful, delicate wife who couldn’t bear the shock of her husband returned from the grave. 

But readers can infer that Louise Mallard died of the grief of a freedom she never had , then found, then lost once more. Readers can interpret Louise’s death as her experience of true grief in the story—that for her ideal life, briefly realized then snatched away. 

In "The Story of an Hour," the appearance of hearts symbolize both repression and hope.

“The Story of an Hour” Symbolism and Motifs

  Symbols are any object, word, or other element that appear in the story and have additional meanings beyond. Motifs are elements from a story that gain meaning from being repeated throughout the narrative. The line between symbols and motifs is often hazy, but authors use both to help communicate their ideas and themes. 

  In “The Story of an Hour,” symbolism is everywhere, but the three major symbols present in the story are: 

•   The heart
• The house and the outdoors
• Joy and sorrow

Heart disease, referred to as a “heart condition” within the text, opens and closes the text. The disease is the initial cause for everyone’s concern, since Louise’s condition makes her delicate. Later, heart disease causes Louise’s death upon Brently’s safe return. In this case, Louise’s ailing heart has symbolic value because it suggests to readers that her life has left her heartbroken. When she believes she’s finally found freedom, Louise prays for a long life...when just the day before, she’d “had thought with a shudder that life might be long.”

As Louise realizes her freedom, it’s almost as if her heart sparks back to life. Chopin writes, “Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously...she was striving to beat it back...Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.” These words suggest that, with her newfound freedom, the symptoms of her heart disease have lifted. Readers can surmise that Louise’s diseased heart is the result of being repressed, and hope brings her heart back to life. 

  Unfortunately, when Brently comes back, so does Louise’s heart disease. And, although her death is attributed to joy, the return of her (both symbolic and literal) heart disease kills her in the end. 

The House and the Outdoors

The second set of symbols are Louise’s house and the world she can see outside of her window. Chopin contrasts these two symbolic images to help readers better understand how marriage and repression have affected Louise. 

First of all, Louise is confined to the home—both within the story and in general. For her, however, her home isn’t a place to relax and feel comfortable. It’s more like a prison cell. All of the descriptions of the house reinforce the idea that it’s closed off and inescapable . For instance, the front door is locked when Mr. Mallard returns home. When Mrs. Mallard is overcome with grief, she goes deeper inside her house and locks herself in her room.

In that room, however, Mrs. Mallard takes note of the outdoors by looking out of her window.  Even in her momentary grief, she describes the “open square before her house” and “the new spring life.” The outdoors symbolize freedom in the story, so it’s no surprise that she realizes her newfound freedom as she looks out her window. Everything about the outside is free, beautiful, open, inviting, and pleasant...a stark contrast from the sadness inside the house . 

The house and its differences from outdoors serve as one of many symbols for how Louise feels about her marriage: barred from a world of independence.

Joy and Sorrow

  Finally, joy and sorrow are motifs that come at unexpected times throughout “The Story of an Hour.” Chopin juxtaposes joy and sorrow to highlight how tragedy releases Louise from her sorrow and gives her a joyous hope for the future. 

At first, sorrow appears as Louise mourns the death of her husband. Yet, in just a few paragraphs, she finds joy in the event as she discovers a life of her own. Though Louise is able to see that feeling joy at such an event is “monstrous,” she continues to revel in her happiness. 

  It is later that, when others expect her to be joyful, Josephine lets out a “piercing cry,” and Louise dies. Doctors interpret this as “the joy that kills,” but more likely it’s a sorrow that kills. The reversal of the “appropriate” feelings at each event reveals how counterintuitive the “self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being” is to the surrounding culture. This paradox reveals something staggering about Louise’s married life: she is so unhappy with her situation that grief gives her hope...and she dies when that hope is taken away. 

Key Takeaways: Kate Chopin's “The Story of an Hour” 

Analyzing Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” takes time and careful thought despite the shortness of the story. The story is open to multiple interpretations and has a lot to reveal about women in the 1890s, and many of the story’s themes, characters, and symbols critique women’s marriage roles during the period .

There’s a lot to dig through when it comes to “The Story of an Hour” analysis. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, just remember a few things :

• Events from Kate Chopin’s life and from social changes in the 1890s provided a strong basis for the story.
• Mrs. Louise Mallard’s heart condition, house, and feelings represent deeper meanings in the narrative.
• Louise goes from a state of repression, to freedom, and then back to repression, and the thought alone is enough to kill her.

Remembering the key plot points, themes, characters, and symbols will help you write any essay or participate in any discussion. Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” has much more to uncover, so read it again, ask questions, and start exploring the story beyond the page!

What’s Next? 

You may have found your way to this article because analyzing literature can be tricky to master. But like any skill, you can improve with practice! First, make sure you have the right tools for the job by learning about literary elements. Start by mastering the 9 elements in every piece of literature , then dig into our element-specific guides (like this one on imagery and this one on personification .)

Another good way to start practicing your analytical skills is to read through additional expert guides like this one. Literary guides can help show you what to look for and explain why certain details are important. You can start with our analysis of Dylan Thomas’ poem, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” We also have longer guides on other words like The Great Gatsby and The Crucible , too.

If you’re preparing to take the AP Literature exam, it’s even more important that you’re able to quickly and accurately analyze a text . Don’t worry, though: we’ve got tons of helpful material for you. First, check out this overview of the AP Literature exam . Once you have a handle on the test, you can start practicing the multiple choice questions , and even take a few full-length practice tests . Oh, and make sure you’re ready for the essay portion of the test by checking out our AP Literature reading list!

Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving college-bound students the in-depth information they need to get into the school of their dreams.

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Analysis of "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin

Self-Determination and Louise Mallard Living for Herself

 D Fu Tong Zhao /EyeEm/Getty Images

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"The Story of an Hour" by American author Kate Chopin is a mainstay of feminist literary study . Originally published in 1894, the story documents the complicated reaction of Louise Mallard upon learning of her husband's death.

It is difficult to discuss "The Story of an Hour" without addressing the ironic ending. If you haven't read the story yet, you might as well, as it's only about 1,000 words. The Kate Chopin International Society is kind enough to provide a free, accurate version .

At the Beginning, News That Will Devastate Louise

At the beginning of the story, Richards and Josephine believe they must break the news of Brently Mallard's death to Louise Mallard as gently as possible. Josephine informs her "in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing." Their assumption, not an unreasonable one, is that this unthinkable news will be devastating to Louise and will threaten her weak heart.

A Growing Awareness of Freedom

Yet something even more unthinkable lurks in this story: Louise's growing awareness of the freedom she will have without Brently.

At first, she doesn't consciously allow herself to think about this freedom. The knowledge reaches her wordlessly and symbolically, via the "open window" through which she sees the "open square" in front of her house. The repetition of the word "open" emphasizes possibility and a lack of restrictions.

Patches of Blue Sky Amid the Clouds

The scene is full of energy and hope. The trees are "all aquiver with the new spring of life," the "delicious breath of rain" is in the air, sparrows are twittering, and Louise can hear someone singing a song in the distance. She can see "patches of blue sky" amid the clouds.

She observes these patches of blue sky without registering what they might mean. Describing Louise's gaze, Chopin writes, "It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought." If she had been thinking intelligently, social norms might have prevented her from such a heretical recognition. Instead, the world offers her "veiled hints" that she slowly pieces together without even realizing she is doing so.

A Force Is Too Powerful to Oppose

In fact, Louise resists the impending awareness, regarding it "fearfully." As she begins to realize what it is, she strives "to beat it back with her will." Yet its force is too powerful to oppose.

This story can be uncomfortable to read because, on the surface, Louise seems to be glad that her husband has died. But that isn't quite accurate. She thinks of Brently's "kind, tender hands" and "the face that had never looked save with love upon her," and she recognizes that she has not finished weeping for him.

Her Desire for Self-Determination

But his death has made her see something she hasn't seen before and might likely never have seen if he had lived: her desire for self-determination .

Once she allows herself to recognize her approaching freedom, she utters the word "free" over and over again, relishing it. Her fear and her uncomprehending stare are replaced by acceptance and excitement. She looks forward to "years to come that would belong to her absolutely."

She Would Live for Herself

In one of the most important passages of the story, Chopin describes Louise's vision of self-determination. It's not so much about getting rid of her husband as it is about being entirely in charge of her own life, "body and soul." Chopin writes:

"There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a will upon a fellow-creature."

Note the phrase men and women. Louise never catalogs any specific offenses Brently has committed against her; rather, the implication seems to be that marriage can be stifling for both parties.

The Irony of Joy That Kills

When Brently Mallard enters the house alive and well in the final scene, his appearance is utterly ordinary. He is "a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella." His mundane appearance contrasts greatly with Louise's "feverish triumph" and her walking down the stairs like a "goddess of Victory."

When the doctors determine that Louise "died of heart disease -- of joy that kills," the reader immediately recognizes the irony . It seems clear that her shock was not joy over her husband's survival, but rather distress over losing her cherished, newfound freedom. Louise did briefly experience joy -- the joy of imagining herself in control of her own life. And it was the removal of that intense joy that led to her death.

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A Summary and Analysis of Kate Chopin’s ‘The Story of an Hour’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Some short stories can say all they need to do in just a few pages, and Kate Chopin’s three-page 1894 story ‘The Story of an Hour’ (sometimes known as ‘The Dream of an Hour’) is a classic example. Yet those three pages remain tantalisingly ambiguous, perhaps because so little is said, so much merely hinted at. Yet Chopin’s short story is, upon closer inspection, a subtle, studied analysis of death, marriage, and personal wishes.

Written in April 1894 and originally published in Vogue in December of that year, the story focuses on an hour in the life of a married woman who has just learnt that her husband has apparently died.

‘The Story of an Hour’: plot summary

What happens in that brief hour, that story of an hour? A married woman, Mrs Louise Mallard, who has heart trouble, learns that her husband has died in a railroad accident.

Her sister Josephine breaks the news to her; it was her husband’s friend Richards who first heard about the railroad disaster and saw her husband’s name, Brently Mallard, at the top of the list of fatalities. Her first reaction is to weep at the news that her husband is dead; she then takes herself off to her room to be alone.

She sinks into an armchair and finds herself attuned to a series of sensations: the trees outside the window ‘aquiver with the new spring life’, the ‘breath of rain’ in the air; the sound of a peddler crying his wares in the street below. She finds herself going into a sort of trancelike daze, a ‘suspension of intelligent thought’.

Then, gradually, a feeling begins to form within her: a sense of freedom. Now her husband is dead, it seems, she feels free. She dreads seeing her husband’s face (as she knows she must, when she goes to identify the body), but she knows that beyond that lie years and years of her life yet to be lived, and ‘would all belong to her absolutely’.

She reflects that she had loved her husband – sometimes. Sometimes she hadn’t. But now, that didn’t matter: what matters is the ‘self-assertion’, the declaration of independence, that her life alone represents a new start.

But then, her sister Josephine calls from outside the door for her to come out, worried that Louise is making herself ill. But Louise doesn’t feel ill: she feels on top of the world. She used to dread the prospect of living to a ripe old age, but now she welcomes such a prospect. Eventually she opens the door and she and Josephine go back downstairs.

Richards is still down there, waiting for them. Then, there’s a key in the front door and who should enter but … Mrs Mallard’s husband, Brently Mallard.

It turns out he was nowhere near the scene of the railroad accident, and is unharmed! Mrs Mallard is so shocked at his return that she dies, partly because of her heart disease but also, so ‘they’ said, from the unexpected ‘joy’ of her husband’s return.

‘The Story of an Hour’: analysis

In some ways, ‘The Story of an Hour’ prefigures a later story like D. H. Lawrence’s ‘ Odour of Chrysanthemums ’ (1911), which also features a female protagonist whose partner’s death makes her reassess her life with him and to contemplate the complex responses his death has aroused in her.

However, in Lawrence’s story the husband really has died (in a mining accident), whereas in ‘The Story of an Hour’, we find out at the end of the story that Mr Mallard was not involved in the railroad accident and is alive and well. In a shock twist, it is his wife who dies, upon learning that he is still alive.

What should we make of this ‘dream of an hour’? That alternative title is significant, not least because of the ambiguity surrounding the word ‘dream’. Is Louise so plunged into shock by the news of her husband’s apparent death that she begins to hallucinate that she would be better off without him? Is this her way of coping with traumatic news – to try to look for the silver lining in a very black cloud? Or should we analyse ‘dream’ as a sign that she entertains aspirations and ambitions, now her husband is out of the way?

‘The Dream of an Hour’ perhaps inevitably puts us in mind of Kate Chopin’s most famous story, the short novel The Awakening (1899), whose title reflects its female protagonist Edna Pontellier’s growing awareness that there is more to life than her wifely existence.

But Louisa Mallard’s ‘awakening’ remains a dream; when she awakes from it, upon learning that her husband is still alive and all her fancies about her future life have been in vain, she dies.

‘The Story of an Hour’ and modernism

‘The Story of an Hour’ is an early example of the impressionistic method of storytelling which was also being developed by Anton Chekhov around the same time as Chopin, and which would later be used by modernists such as Katherine Mansfield, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf.

Although the story uses an omniscient third-person narrator, we are shown things from particular character perspectives in a way that reflects their own confusions and erratic thoughts – chiefly, of course, Louisa Mallard’s own.

But this impressionistic style – which is more interested in patterns of thought, daydreaming, and emotional responses to the world than in tightly structured plots – continues right until the end of the story.

Consider the final sentence of the story: ‘When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease – of joy that kills.’ The irony, of course, is that Louisa appears to have accepted her husband’s death and to have taken his demise as a chance to liberate herself from an oppressive marriage (note Chopin’s reference to the lines on her face which ‘bespoke repression and even a certain strength’ – what did she need that strength for, we wonder?).

So it was not joy but disappointment, if anything, that brought on the heart attack that killed her. But the (presumably male) doctors who attended her death would not have assumed any such thing: they would have analysed her death as a result of her love for her husband, and the sheer joy she felt at having him back.

Chopin’s story also foreshadows Katherine Mansfield’s ‘The Garden Party’ , and Laura Sheridan’s enigmatic emotional reaction to seeing her first dead body (as with Chopin’s story, a man who has died in an accident). If you enjoyed this analysis of ‘The Story of an Hour’, you might also enjoy Anton Chekhov’s 1900 story ‘At Christmas Time’, to which Chopin’s story has been compared.

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The Story of an Hour

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Analysis: “The Story of an Hour”

The title “The Story of an Hour” references the amount of time that elapses in Chopin’s tale, which tracks the emotions and thoughts of the protagonist , Mrs. Louise Mallard , upon learning of her husband’s death. Though the story barely exceeds 1,000 words, Chopin creates a sense of temporal expansion by intricately plotting the transition of Louise’s feelings from grief, to liberation, to joy, to determination, and finally to shock at her husband’s unexpected return. By employing a third-person omniscient narrator, Chopin balances these observations of Louise’s interior life with observations of contemporary social expectations for women in 1890s America. She uses psychological realism , a literary genre that prioritizes character interiority over action, and that was popular with late 19th-century writers who were also influenced by the naturalist and realist literary movements.

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Home › Literature › Analysis of Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour

Analysis of Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 28, 2021

Originally entitled “The Dream of an Hour” when it was first published in Vogue (December 1894), “The Story of an Hour” has since become one of Kate Chopin’s most frequently anthologized stories. Among her shortest and most daring works, “Story” examines issues of feminism, namely, a woman’s dissatisfaction in a conventional marriage and her desire for independence. It also features Chopin’s characteristic irony and ambiguity .

The story begins with Louise Mallard’s being told about her husband’s presumed death in a train accident. Louise initially weeps with wild abandon, then retires alone to her upstairs bedroom. As she sits facing the open window, observing the new spring life outside, she realizes with a “clear and exalted perception” that she is now free of her husband’s “powerful will bending hers” (353). She becomes delirious with the prospect that she can now live for herself and prays that her life may be long. Her newfound independence is short-lived, however. In a surprise ending, her husband walks through the front door, and Louise suffers a heart attack and dies. Her death may be considered a tragic defeat or a pyrrhic victory for a woman who would rather die than lose that “possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being” (353). The doctors ironically attribute her death to the “joy that kills” (354).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Chopin, Kate. The Complete Works of Kate Chopin. Edited by Per Seyersted. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969. Koloski, Bernard. Kate Chopin: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1996. Seyersted, Per. Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969. Toth, Emily. Kate Chopin. New York: Morrow, 1990

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Easy Insightful Literature Notes

The Story of an Hour Summary & Analysis

The story line / plot summary.

‘The Story of an Hour’ written by Kate Chopin in 1894 is about the tragic event or events that happened with Mrs. Louise Mallard one day.

The story starts with the news that Mr. Brently Mallard has died in a railroad accident. Richards, Mr. Mallard’s friend, is first to hear this shocking news and he informed the Mallard family immediately. Mrs. Louise Mallard has heart disease, so great care is taken in informing Mrs. Mallard about her husband’s death.

Josephine, Louise’s sister, takes the responsibility to break the horrible news to her. She says in broken sentences, the truth veiled in concealment. At once Mrs. Mallard breaks down completely. She goes wild with grief. When the storm of grief has subsided, she locks herself in her bedroom.

Sitting on an armchair near the open window of her room, she looks at the blue sky, physically exhausted. The spring air smells of upcoming rain, of fresh greenery and flowers. She can hear a distant voice singing a song, countless sparrows twittering madly somewhere.

Mrs. Mallard is now motionless in the chair with periodic sobs in between. She was quite young with a calm face. But now there’s a steeliness in her stare. But her gaze isn’t of reflection, there is no sign of intelligence and knowledge in that gaze. She goes quite still and waits with fear for what is coming for her. But she doesn’t know what exactly is coming her way.

Her bosom rises and falls tumultuously. She struggles to keep herself free from the clutches of whatever is trying to drown her. She fights and wins. In her semi-conscious state, she keeps whispering the word “free!” repeatedly. The fear and vacant expression is replaced by a calm, bright and keen expression. ‘At last I’m free’ is her first thought. She thinks that her husband, though kind, never really loved her. She felt suffocated and hopeless with him, not loved and cherished. But now that he’s dead, she can be free. ‘Free soul! Free body!’ are her exact words.

Josephine was kneeling outside Louise’s door, begging her sister to open the door. Louise screams that she’s fine and asks her not to worry for her. Her imagination has taken her on a riot. She was imagining herself during summer, winter, spring and in all the seasons alone, enjoying herself, without any restrictions or sadness.

All of a sudden, she rises and opens the door and walks down the stairs, hand in hand with her sister. But when she reaches the bottom stair, someone opens the door with a latch key. On the threshold stood Mr. Mallard, travel-stained and calmly carrying his umbrella and grip-sack. It is known that he was quite far from the place where the accident had taken place. In fact, he didn’t know there had been an accident at all, let alone that someone had put his name in the dead men’s list.

Then everything happens quite fast; Richard tries to shield Mr. Mallard from Mrs. Mallard’s view but it is too late. The shock of seeing him again kills Louise at once. When the doctors come, they say she died due to her heart disease.

The Story of an Hour: A Commentary on the Story

‘The story of an hour’, as the title suggests, is really a story of an hour of Mrs. Mallard’s life. It’s written in third person narrative technique from an unknown narrator’s perspective. The writing style is quite simple but intriguing as well. The author has done a great job in describing Mrs. Mallard’s despair and then her happiness. The story flow is quite smooth; nothing seems forced or unnatural.

The story starts with the news of Mr. Mallard’s death. The description is quite simple and can make the reader quite curious at the same time. The main concern of the story has been the character of Mrs. Mallard and the purging of her heart by the sad news. At first, upon hearing the news of her husband’s death, she went wild with grief but later came up quite happy to be free from all bondage — from the confinement of marriage. She has come out as a self-asserting and confident woman ahead of her time.

Mrs. Mallard was apparently never loved by her husband and was trapped in a loveless marriage. The event of her husband’s death prompted a kind of rebirth for her. And through this story, the author presents the social themes like male domination in society, and loveless, unsuccessful marriages. The position of women in the society is under the author’s scanner. It has been almost an identity crisis for Louise, which she feels she finds back after her husband’s death. That is why the unexpected return of her husband was so shocking for her.

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“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin Literary Analysis: Plot, Themes, Characters, Setting, and Symbolism

Kate Chopin’s (1850-1904) short story “ The Story of an Hour” narrates events that happen within an hour. 

Louise Mallard is a young, calm, and frail woman who suffers from a heart disease. On this day, Louise learns from her sister Josephine and a family friend, Richards, that her husband, Brently Mallard, has died. She briefly weeps in Josephine’s arms and then heads to her room alone. 

While watching the street from her window, she feels an unknown feeling building up and when she gives in to this, Louise realizes that it is the joy of being free from her husband’s constant impositions on her life. The primary character then begins to envision an exciting future and imagines a life where she will live for herself. 

However, these feelings of joy and freedom are short-lived. As Louise walks down the stairs from her room, Brently walks into the house and she learns that her husband did not perish in the accident. Mrs. Mallard dies on the spot and the doctor rules that she died of joy. However, with the knowledge of her previous joy, it’s clear that her death is from the disappointment of losing the full free life she had envisioned. 

Let’s look at an analysis of the plot, main themes, characters, setting, and other minor literary devices in “ The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin

The Story of an Hour Plot Analysis

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin has a linear or traditional plot structure with an introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and a resolution at the end.

The very first line serves as an introduction or exposition to the plot. Chopin states that Mrs. Mallard “is afflicted with a heart trouble.” This point sets up the rest of the events to come in the story, while it also introduces Mrs. Mallard’s signature trait. Her heart condition also creates a meek perception of her and explains why the other characters have to take great care when telling her sensitive information.  The exposition continues with news of Mr. Mallard’s death. Knowing Mrs. Mallard’s frail heart, Josephine breaks the news with care and “veiled hints that revealed in half concealing”.

A rising action begins in the next part of the story regarding how Mrs. Mallard takes in the news of her husband’s death. It’s expected that a woman learning that her husband just died would take the news with disbelief, loud wailing, or any reaction contrary to Mrs. Mallard. Instead, Chopin explains that Mrs. Mallard “wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms.” She then goes into her room, supposedly to mourn her husband.

The story comes to a climax when Louise experiences a feeling that’s contrary to the sadness of losing a husband. She realizes and revels in her newfound freedom thinking, “There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature” 

“‘Free! Body and soul free!’ she kept whispering.”

After this, a falling action starts with Mrs.Mallard giving in to her sister’s incessant requests and opening her room’s door. Together, they descend the stairs, with Louise feeling victorious and triumphant over her new life. The story finally concludes with a resolution as Brently Mallard enters the room, revealing that he did not die in the railroad accident. Mrs. Mallard dies not because of the joy of her husband’s return, but because of the disappointment as her envisioned life of freedom flashes before her eyes.

Themes in The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

Love and marriage as inherent issues is one of the themes this short story presents. The presence of love is not synonymous with a good marriage, as suggested throughout the plot.

Love and Marriage

Mr. and Mrs. Mallard love each other, and Chopin ensures we know this several times. While welcoming the freedom ahead of her, she still feels bad about her husband’s death because nevertheless, he was a kind man who loved her. “She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead” 

Louise also admits that she loves Brently, but not all the time. Most of the time she doesn’t. Despite this, she still perceives her husband’s death as a good thing and a gateway to freedom. It’s almost as if she has just been freed from an oppressive situation. 

Note that Mrs. Mallard does not state specifically any specific thing that happens during their marriage to change her feelings towards her husband. She instead rants on how marriage is will-bending, with men and women feeling the need to impose their will on others. In his analysis of the author’s works, Kate Chopin’s Life and Personal Influence , Jasdomin Tolentino affirms that Chopin grew up in an environment where women were always taught “to think independently, but also to be submissive to men.” This is reflected in the story as Mrs. Mallard rejoices in her newfound freedom and independence. 

Elaine Fortin in her 2014 essay Early Nineteenth Century Attitudes Toward Women and Their Roles as Represented By Literature Popular in Worcester, Massachusetts adds on this forced submission; “Submissive wives, who followed the, advice not to retort an abusive husband, received praise and were supposedly rewarded with a happy home and a faithful husband.” Chopin describes Mrs. Mallard with a “calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength.” Men, and the patriarchal society at large, repressed a woman’s need for individuality and independence, not even the strong could survive. 

Gender Roles and Gender Inequality

Like most feminist literature published around this time (1894), “The Story of an Hour” covers gender roles and gender inequality heavily as themes too.   

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, women got the brunt of gender inequality, as society perceived them as inferior to men. They were expected to always depend on their husbands or other male figures in the society like fathers or brothers, as Fortin describes in her literature review above. Domestic roles, including accommodating their husbands through cleaning and cooking, were among a woman’s primary responsibilities. And for those who managed to break these barriers, employment was characterized by lower wages with equal responsibilities, as well as gender discrimination at the workplace. Most women did not seek employment because they lived under their husband’s impositions, including the patriarchal perception that women should stay and tend to the home as men go out and become breadwinners. Fortin also adds that the women had little to no financial independence because everything either belonged to their husbands or fathers. 

In The Story of an Hour, Mrs. Mallard is an ideal representation of a woman in the 19 th century who is in search of lost identity and only feels she can achieve this in the absence of her husband. Of interest in the story is that it is only through a husband’s death that a woman during this time would grasp the taste of independence and freedom because then, she’s not living in the shadows of a man. Therefore, despite the sad news and her grief, Mrs. Mallard cannot help but feel happy because life is about to change for the best: she’s finally free. A majority of women did not have the slightest clue about independence and when Louise finally realizes that she is about to live life on her own terms, she’s in utter disbelief.

“She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will.”

It is also important to note that Chopin does not refer to Louise by her own name, but that of her husband, until later when we learn of her newfound freedom. In other words, Louise only finds her identity and independence after Brently dies because women in the 19 th century had to identify with a male figure.

From a feminist literature lens , The Story of an Hour falls under the first wave of feminism, when the movement heavily criticized the power of the patriarchal society and the effects it had on women, especially in marriage. An example is married women whose desires and identities were repressed to fit and serve men.

Character Analysis 

The story uses both direct and indirect characterization techniques to develop its four characters. Chopin uses a lot of direct characterization of Mrs.Mallard, while she leaves the audience to deduce the traits of the other three characters through indirect characterization. 

Mrs. Mallard is the primary character and protagonist . The story begins with details about her heart problem, casting her as fragile and setting the pace for the entire plot. “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.” Because of this, Josephine and Richards are careful when breaking the news of Brently’s death. It’s the same reason Josephine worries about Louise’s health when she locks herself in her room. 

“Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door–you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.”

The two worry that the news of her husband’s death would affect her while ironically, it’s the news of his survival that kills her.

Chopin further characterizes Mrs. Mallard as physically weak and mentally exhausted; traits that bolster the issue of repression painted in the story. 

 “…she was striving to beat it back with her will–as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.”

It’s also evident in several instances that Mrs. Mallard feels exhausted with life, so much that, “It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.” This exhaustion seems to stem from her marriage which has made her a repressed, dutiful, and submissive wife. 

 As she sits to process Brently’s death in her room, there’s “a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.” Notice how this perception of her changes when she opens the door and descends the door to welcome and live her new free life. There’s “a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory.”

Although there’s no direct characterization of Brently, we can deduce a few things from Mrs.Mallard’s thoughts and actions. Given her perception of marriage, including hers, her husband  shares the same societal and patriarchal expectations of women during that period. She marvels, “There would be no one to live for during those coming years; … that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature.”

And yet, Mrs. Mallard knows that her husband loved her. She “ knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her.”

The Story of an Hour Setting Analysis

The entire story takes place in Mrs. Mallard’s storied house. Spring season is just starting as the trees come to life and “patches of blue sky showing here and there.” 

Spring comes after winter; the cold, lifeless, gloomy, and repressed season. Spring is like a rebirth with its warm weather, as trees grow new life and nature becomes vibrant again. This setting is parallel with what’s happening in Mrs. Mallard’s life. After years of repression in a marriage to someone she doesn’t love, she’s finally free. Life suddenly feels vast and she longs for the life ahead of her, a life she’ll spend living off her own will. 

The two rooms where the story’s 60-minutes events take place both represent Louise’s different experiences that all shape the plot. The living room is where she learns about Brently’s death and also where she dies after learning of her husband’s return/survival. It’s a place where cannot be herself and is always under her husband’s will. Even in the end, the doctors conclude that she dies from the happiness of seeing her husband alive, while the true reason is that she has gained and lost her free will in less than an hour.    

Mrs. Mallard’s room, on the other hand,  is a setting that allows her to be herself, feel her true emotions, and envision a life of freedom. 

Symbolism and Motifs in The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

Several objects in the story signify the freedom and rebirth Louise experiences, at least for a few minutes. Besides the setting discussed above, Chopin tactfully includes other instances of symbolism to signify Mrs. Mallard’s new life that promises “Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own.”  

The open window with the view before her house has a view of things like trees filled with new spring life, patches of the blue sky amidst clouds, birds chirping, a distant note of someone singing, and so on. All these are signs of something coming to life. She’s embracing and welcoming her new life without Brently, “drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.” These images and symbols of springtime also double as motifs that reinforce the new great life Mrs.Mallard envisions. 

Do you have any literary analysis questions for your essay writing or just loved reading ‘ The Story of an Hour’ by Kate Chopin and wanna start a conversation? Let me know in the comment section below! 🙂

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The Story of An Hour by Kate Chopin : Summary and Analysis

The story of an hour summary.

The Story of an Hour : The Story 

The Story of an Hour , originally titled The Dream of an Hour by Kate Chopin concerns a curious episode in the life of a woman who has just heard the news of her husband’s death and who comes to terms with the consequences arising thereof. Blasting off gender stereotypes in a frank and  honest manner, this story brings up some disconcerting issues and raises some important questions around the construction of femininity and the institution of marriage.

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The Story of an Hour : Summary

   Mrs Mallard , the protagonist of the story isn’t satisfied with her marriage to Brently Mallard . Some important facts are presented right at the outset of the story : that Mrs Mallard is afflicted with a heart disease and that her husband has just been killed in a railroad accident . Her sister Josephine and her husband’s  friend Richards are the first (and the last) give her the sad news. Richards had in fact been  the first to receive the telegram notifying  Mr  Mallards’s death.  He rushes to the house with the motive of relating her the news in as gentle a manner as possible. Finally, it’s Josephine who breaks the  news.

Instead of giving in to mute resignation, Mrs Mallard cries her heart out, locks herself  in her room and  sinks into an armchair. She takes some time to recover composure before stumbling upon an important realisation –  that she is free from her husband’s command and henceforth can become the mistress of her own life.   At first, she comes across a feeling “ too subtle and elusive to name “. She even tries to fight it back for sometime before the words finally escape her lips ” free, free free !”. Her eyes lose the vacant stare of terror and instead turn “ keen and brigh t”. We then witness her   breaking free from the socially constructed role of the dutiful wife .  It is a  moment of epiphany. A highly sensory language  is used to describe the intensity of her feelings. It’s as if she’s just come alive to the experiences around her:

She could see in the open so hard before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring  life… There would be no one to live for her during those coming  years; she would live for herself.

    It seems as if she was living her life for somebody else all this time . The fact that it is her husband’s death which brings her alive to all the happenings around her is quite telling. Mrs Mallard begins to feel that the feeling of “love”  isn’t in fact as powerful as the possession of self assertion.

Meanwhile, her sister Josephine is standing at the door, pleading her sister to open it. Louise ‘s ( No more Mrs Mallard now)  joy over this newfound freedom is so complete that she almost gives herself away when she gives in to her sister’s request and comes out of the room carrying herself unwittingly  “like a goddess of Victory.” However, her joy  turns out to be a short-lived one and her freedom remains unrealized when Mr Mallard enters the house . Turns out, it was a different Brently Mallard who was killed in the railroad accident. Being afflicted with a heart trouble and with all her dreams dashed at the unfortunate sight of her healthy husband, Lousia  gets a heart stroke and dies.

The Story of an Hour : Analysis

The Story of an Hour is what it says: it is the story of an hour in the life of a married woman. However, this hour is unlike any she has been  through so far. It is in this hour that she, on hearing about her husband’s ‘death’ discovers her freedom. Spanning a great length of barely three pages, the well-crafted story is a strong feminist critique of the society,  the institution of marriage and the construction of femininity within that institution. Furthermore, it is also a critique of the (mis)representation and misinterpretation of women in art and literature . Female self-assertion , independence and freedom lie at the core of this short story. Chopin’s intense engagement with the feminist cause is central to understanding the story which has been hailed as one of the foremost examples of feminist fiction in the short story form .

Chopin’s construction of the plot, the protagonist and  her use of language demands undivided attention if one is to make a sound analysis of this story.

Mrs Mallard is introduced as an unhappy housewife with a heart trouble. The mention of her heart condition right at the beginning of the story is significant and will be taken up later in the course of analysis.

The well-wishers of Mrs Mallard try to soften the blow of her husband’s death as carefully as possible. Her sister tries to convey the message “ in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing” . Her husband’s friend Richards hurries himself to the spot to prevent “ any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message “. Though it is true that her heart trouble necessitated  such precautions, it is safe to assume that the manner of informing her about her husband’s death would’ve been just as covert even if she did not have a heart trouble. The most obvious reason for such a cautionary move is the blow inflicted by a dear one’s death. The not-so-obvious reason is that women in the past have been constructed as  delicate people when it comes to handling such situations. Years of construction of feminity  by  male writers and the reiteration of gender stereotypes in literature has led to the creation of certain behavioural ‘expectations’ from the female character. This is perhaps what Kate Chopin is consciously writing against . Consider the first line of the third stanza of the story:

“She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance”

Which women is the speaker talking about? The women in real life or the women in fiction, or both? Chopin is keenly aware of the gender stereotypes engendered by years of male-centered literature. Perhaps she  is also aware of the stereotypes being shared by the reader. It is this consciousness about the tradition of writing preceding her and the reworking of that tradition which makes The Story of an Hour not just a story  of an hour but a response to the Stories of the Ages which had established the ‘norm’ through literary repetition.

A ‘ storm of grief ‘ overwhelms Mrs Mallard on hearing of her husband’s death. After the storm subsides, she goes to her room and becomes aware of the new possibilities her life can take following her husband’s death.

One might be tempted to dismiss Mrs Mallard as a selfish person. However, she isn’t an unfeeling individual . We are told that “ she knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind tender hands folded in death ”.  She isn’t happy that her husband died. She’s happy that she is free. There’s a difference between the two. The unrealistic societal expectations asking women to feel in this way and not that, to react in one way and not another has been reinforced by a huge portion of literature to such an extent  that the female figure has frequently been either deified or demonized and   often been denied a fair treatment on human terms. When given due consideration, we find that the seeming ‘selfishness’ of Mrs Mallard is no more than a very basic human aspiration: to be seen and  be treated as a free human being . And it isn’t just about women the speaker is concerned with. We are given to understand she is against the “blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. ”

Neither is it the case that their’s is a loveless marriage or that Mr Mallard is a bad husband. We are told that  Brently’s was a “ face that had never looked save with love upon her “. But perhaps love isn’t enough. Perhaps it is the institution of marriage itself which results in unequal power relation between either parties which further leads to one’s will being suppressed by another, no matter how benevolent the partner may be. By locating the suffocation faced  by Mrs Mallard within the structure of a relatively good marriage, Chopin locates the problem in the structure itself and leaves no room to point at  Mrs Mallard’s situation as a strictly subjective case.

A rich symbolism is employed in the scene where Mrs Mallard shuts herself in a room after hearing of her husband’s death where she leans against an open window:

The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which someone was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

This heavily sensory imagery , completely engulfing the visual, the aural and the olfactory seethes with a newfound desire for life. It is as if she has been reborn. Moving beyond the literal, the open window is symbolic of the opening of a new life after her husband’s death. The blue sky reflects the freedom she now has and the infinite possibilities her life can now acquire. This is especially the case since the blue sky shows “ through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other “, similar to the way in which years of her marriage had subjugated of her will to that of her husband’s and had suffocated her life so far.

Chopin has made a brilliant use of contrast in this story. Mrs Mallard’s death is contrasted with Louise’s newfound life. Notice, that Mr Mallard is supposed to have died in a railroad accident, a casualty of a hard, mechanical machine. Mechanical, like an institution – like the institution of marriage. Louise’s  discovery of a new  life on the other hand is organic and takes place in the lap of nature where the “ trees are aquiver with the new spring life “. This free state of being is natural, unlike the artificial man-made institution of marriage.

Because gender identity has been actively constructed through narratives and acting out of those narratives in real life, the actions of people are often (mis)interpreted by comparing it with a set of “expected” behaviour. This is perhaps one of the reasons why Josephine kneels before the keyhole of the closed door, imploring her sister to open the door  saying that “ she will make herself ill” and Richard rushes to the scene before any “ less careful ‘ and ‘ less tender ‘ person relates the message. However,our Mrs Mallard is beyond any societal ‘expectation’ because she is an individual, a human being and her identity cannot be compartmentalized within the narrow confines of societal norms. It is interesting to note that this is also the first time (and that towards the very end of the story)  we get to hear the actual name of the protagonist  and not merely by her title  and an appendage of her husband.    Louise  is much more than Mrs Mallard . And that we come to know her real name and identity only after her husband’s supposed death is a telling one indeed.

Here, one may briefly touch upon thecharacter of Josephine , Mrs Mallard’s sister who serves as a foil to the protagonist . Josephine is someone who plays by the narrative insofar as the construction of the female identity is concerned. She expects her sister to react in a certain manner on hearing about her husband’s death and though her behavior may border on sisterly concern, she seems to have internalized the narrative constructed around the idea of a ‘wife’ and fails to anticipate or imagine an alternative mode of behavior on one’s part as opposed to the established ‘traditional’ one.

A close relationship between freedom and happiness is established in Mrs Mallard’s epiphanic moment after her husband’s death. She begins to view freedom as the strongest impulse and a real condition, above the romanticized interpretation of love and marriage. Freedom therefore becomes a necessary condition for happiness:

What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!

A highly figurative language, rich in similies and metaphors is deployed in this amazingly brief story. The storm of grief makes Mrs Mallard sob like a child before a monstrous joy overwhelms her and her  fancy runs riot , making her carry herself like a goddess of Victory . Eventually, she ‘ descends ‘ the stairs, away from her freedom to death. Quite literally.

Mrs Mallard dies of a heart stroke on seeing her husband alive and kicking. The doctor infers the reason to be a sudden joy on her part – a joy that kills. It is here that the little piece of information about her heart condition furnished in the beginning of the story turns out to be of great value. By citing a genuine physical condition right at the outset, Chopin saves the character of Mrs Mallard from being reduced to a caricature and saves the character of  from collapsing into  another stereotype.

The importance of ‘truth’ and its interpretation is one of the central concerns of the story . The literary device of foreshadowing is employed to understand the nature of a fact and its interpretation. The problems of interpreting a fact is more importantly seen in two different instances at the opposite ends of the story. In the beginning of the story , the first person to receive the news about Mr Mallard’s death is Richards who waits for a second telegram to confirm  the ‘truth’ of the first telegram. This verification and interpretation of ‘truth’ turns out to be a false one. Towards the end of the story, another misinterpretation of an event occurs in that, the reason behind Mrs Mallard’s death as stated by the doctor is equally misleading. The doctor attributes her death to a shock of joy. The readers know better. The truth is obliterated in this case, thanks to the interpretation by an authority figure (the doctor) : quite like many traditional modes of thought and behaviour which  amplifies one view and silences another. As in her life, Mrs Mallard has been misinterpreted in her death. And there’s nothing she can do about it, for her final response to the denial of freedom is death.

The Story of An Hour : About the author

Born to a family of French and Irish descent, Kate Chopin was an American novelist and a short story writer who has been widely regarded as one of the foremost American feminist fiction writers.

Chopin’s literary output prior to her marriage was rather negligible. She married a certain Oscar Chopin  in 1870. Oscar died in 1882, leaving Kate in a huge debt. Following his demise, Kate also lost her mother and the double tragedy pushed her into depression. A family friend (doctor by profession) suggested her to start writing as a therapeutic exercise. It was then that her literary career slowly began its course.

Chopin wrote numerous short stories and poems,  regularly contributing to magazines like The Youth Companion and Vogue among others. Her first novel At Fault wasn’t especially popular  but her later collection of short stories established her as a writer of repute. Some of the most important collections of her short stories include Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadia.

The Awakening is generally considered to be her masterpiece where she explores the deepest concerns of a young wife who abandons her family and eventually commits suicide. The book dealt with themes like interracial marriage and female sexuality in a manner which was  far ahead of its time.

Her realistic treatment of female characters, clever use of irony and effective diction marked her  her as a serious writer of  her times and the pages of her literature reflect the first glimpse of feminist thought in fiction. Her short stories like Desiree’s Baby , Regret , Madam Celestinelz  Divorce etc explore the most private desires, emotions and aspirations of the female character. Female same-sex desires have been boldly dealt with in works like Lilacs and The Awakening .

A bulk of her oeuvre explore women’s search for identity and selfhood,  distinct from the socially constructed rules and their attempts at reconstructing the same according to their own terms. The Story of an Hour is borne of such legacy.

Chopin died in August 28, 1904 following a brain hemorrhage.

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The kate chopin international society, kate chopin: “the story of an hour”, “the story of an hour” is kate chopin’s short story about the thoughts of a woman after she is told that her husband has died in an accident. the story first appeared in vogue in 1894 and is today one of chopin’s most popular works..

By the Editors of KateChopin.org

Read the story online New The popularity of the story Characters Time and place Themes When the story was written and published What critics and scholars say New Questions and answers Accurate texts All of Kate Chopin’s short stories in Spanish Books about the story Articles about the story A graphic version of the story A Christmas opera based on the story

Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” online and in print

You can read the story in our online text . If you’re citing a passage from this or other Kate Chopin stories for research purposes, it’s a good idea to check your citation against one of these printed texts. This is especially important with “The Story of an Hour,” because some online versions of the story — and some published versions — omit a word that changes the meaning of what Kate Chopin is saying.

In the middle of the story, some online versions’ sentence reads, “There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself.” Compare that with the sentence as it appears in our online text: “There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself.” If you don’t see why the word matters, or if you want to understand why there are two versions of the story,  check our questions and answers below .

“The Story of an Hour” characters

• Louise Mallard
• Brently Mallard: husband of Louise
• Josephine: sister of Louise

“The Story of an Hour” time and place

The story is set in the late nineteenth century in the Mallard residence, the home of Brently and  Louise Mallard . More about the location is not specified.

“The Story of an Hour” themes

Readers and scholars often focus on the idea of freedom in “The Story of an Hour,” on selfhood, self-fulfillment, the meaning of love, or what Chopin calls the “possession of self-assertion.” There are further details in what critics and scholars say and in the questions and answers below. And you can read about finding themes in Kate Chopin’s stories and novels on the Themes page of this site.

When Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” was written and published

It was written on April 19, 1894, and first published in Vogue on December 6, 1894, under the title “The Dream of an Hour,” one of nineteen Kate Chopin stories that  Vogue  published. It was reprinted in St. Louis Life on January 5, 1895. The St. Louis Life version includes several changes in the text. As we explain in the questions and answers section of this page , it includes the word “her.” 

You can find out  when Kate Chopin wrote each of her short stories and when and where each was first published.

What critics and scholars say about “The Story of an Hour”

A great deal has been written about this story for many years. Some representative comments:

The story is “one of feminism’s sacred texts,”  Susan Cahill  writing in 1975, when readers were first discovering Kate Chopin.

“Love has been, for Louise and others, the primary purpose of life, but through her new perspective, Louise comprehends that ‘love, the unsolved mystery’ counts for very little. . . . Love is not a substitute for selfhood; indeed, selfhood is love’s precondition.”  Barbara C. Ewell

“Mrs. Mallard will grieve for the husband who had loved her but will eventually revel in the ‘monstrous joy’ of self-fulfillment, beyond ideological strictures and the repressive effects of love.”  Mary Papke

Kate Chopin “was a life-long connoisseur of rickety marriages, and all her wisdom is on display in her piercing analysis of this thoroughly average one.”  Christopher Benfey

“In the mid- to late 1890s, Vogue was the place where Chopin published her most daring and surprising stories [‘The Story of an Hour’ and eighteen others]. . . . Because she had Vogue as a market — and a well-paying one — Kate Chopin wrote the critical, ironic, brilliant stories about women for which she is known today. Alone among magazines of the 1890s, Vogue published fearless and truthful portrayals of women’s lives.”  Emily Toth

Her husband’s death forces Louise to reconcile her “inside” and “outside” consciousness — a female double consciousness within Louise’s thoughts. Though constrained by biological determinism, social conditioning, and marriage, Louise reclaims her own life — but at a price. Her death is the result of the complications in uniting both halves of her world. Angelyn Mitchell

Louise Mallard’s death isn’t caused by her joy at seeing her husband’s return or by her sudden realization that his death has granted her autonomy. She dies as a result of the strain she is under. The irony of her death is that even if her sudden epiphany is freeing, her autonomy is empty, because she has no place in society.  Mark Cunningham

Louise’s death is the culmination of her being “an immature and shallow egotist,” Lawrence Berkove  says. He focuses on the scene in Louise’s bedroom and points out how unrealistic her notion of love is. Her death, he writes, is the only place that will offer her the absolute freedom she desires.

“This astonishing story strongly indicates that the sudden success which [the publication in 1894 of] Bayou Folk brought Kate Chopin was of crucial importance in the author’s own self-fulfillment. It gave her a certain release from what she evidently felt as repression or frustration, thereby freeing forces that had lain dormant in her. It is highly significant that she wrote ‘The Story of an Hour,’ an extreme example of the theme of self-assertion, at the exact moment when the first reviews of the book had both satisfied and increased her secret ambitions.”  Per Seyersted

You can search the titles in our extensive databases of books and articles for more information about this short story — information in English, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Questions and answers about “The Story of an Hour”

Q: I don’t understand what you mean about what happens if “her” is left out of the sentence at the top of the page, “There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself.” How does including “her” change the meaning of the sentence?

A: Without “her,” the sentence means that Louise Mallard has been living for her husband, that he has been the center of her life, that he has been her reason for living. With “her,” the sentence means that Brently Mallard has been controlling his wife’s life, that his “powerful will [has been] bending hers” to his, has been bending what she wants to what he wants, has been forcing her to live the way he wants her to live, to do what he wants her to do.

That’s an important distinction. “Her” in the sentence explains what Mrs. Mallard means by her newly recognized “possession of self-assertion,” what she means by whispering, “Free! Body and soul free!”

Q: Why are there two versions of that sentence, with and without the “her”?

A: When the story was published in  Vogue in 1894, the word “her” was not included. It’s not clear if “her” was in the copy Kate Chopin sent to Vogue or if the Vogue editor or printer left it out intentionally or accidentally. Some printed versions and some websites today use the Vogue  version. You can see the sentence in question three lines down on the right column:

The story was reprinted the following year in St. Louis Life , which was edited by Sue V. Moore. Emily Toth, Chopin’s latest biographer, refers to Moore as “Kate’s friend” and a women who had promoted Chopin’s work for years. A clipping of the  Vogue story pasted on a sheet of paper (and preserved now in the Missouri History Museum) shows two handwritten changes, one of which is the inserted word “her,” and the St. Louis Life version of the story includes those two changes, along with a few others (we are grateful to the staff of the St. Louis Public Library for providing us with this copy), You can see the sentence in question four lines down on the right column:

Daniel Rankin, Chopin’s earliest biographer, says those changes were “made by the author.” Per Seyersted, who edited the  Complete Works of Kate Chopin,  says they were “very likely made by the editor [Sue V. Moore].” Seyersted, nevertheless, included the two changes in his text of the story in the  Complete Works. We use Seyersted’s text here. We include the “her.” Many printed sources and other websites include it, too.

Q: You say that the story was first published under the title, “The Dream of an Hour.” Who changed that title and why?

A: We can probably identify who changed it, but we don’t know why. The story appeared in Vogue in 1894 as “The Dream of an Hour.” Even as late as 1962, critic Edmund Wilson continued to refer to it under this title. But in 1969 it was called “The Story of an Hour” in the Complete Works of Kate Chopin .

It seems likely that Per Seyersted, who edited the  Complete Works,  changed the title, perhaps because Kate Chopin referred to “The Story of an Hour” in one of the two account books where she recorded how much she earned for each of her stories. In the other account book, she referred to the story as “The Dream of an Hour.” (Chopin’s account books are preserved in the Missouri History Museum and are transcribed in Kate Chopin’s Private Papers .)

It may be, however, that if Seyersted changed the title, he did so because a clipping of the  Vogue  story pasted on a sheet of paper (and housed now in the Missouri History Museum) has the word “Dream” crossed out and the word “Story” inserted.

Q: What does the present title mean?

A: The action of the story seems to play out in about an hour’s time.

Q: Do you know how much Vogue magazine paid Kate Chopin for the story?

Yes. Kate Chopin recorded in two account books how much she earned for each of her stories and novels. Vogue paid her $10 for “The Dream of an Hour,” the title under which the story appeared. Because of inflation (the usual increase in the level of prices), that $10 in 1894 would be worth about $355 today.

Q: Is it true that this is Kate Chopin’s most popular story?

A: It probably is true. The story certainly appears in a great many anthologies these days. Kate Chopin’s sensitivity to what it sometimes feels like to be a woman is on prominent display in this work — as it is in The Awakening . Chopin’s often-celebrated yearning for freedom is also on display here–as is her sense of ambiguity and her complex way of seeing life, of seeing, for example, that it is both “men and women” who “believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature.”

From 1929 to about 1970, “Désirée’s Baby” was the best known of Chopin’s works, praised by critics and often reprinted. When the Complete Works of Kate Chopin was published in 1969, “The Storm” –unknown until that time–became famous almost overnight, as did “The Story of an Hour.” Today “Désirée’s Baby,” “The Story of an Hour,” and “The Storm,” are heavily discussed by scholars and regularly read in university and secondary school classes around the world, although a few other stories–among them  “A Respectable Woman,” “Lilacs,” “A Pair of Silk Stockings,” “Athénaïse,” and “At the ‘Cadian Ball” –are also frequently read. However, as we explain above, there is evidence that “The Story of an Hour” is today especially popular.

Q: I’ve read on a website that readers were scandalized by the story when it was published. Why?

A: It’s a mystery to us how the authors of that website could possibly know that readers in the 1890s were, in fact, scandalized by the story. Book reviewers were certainly upset by Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening in 1899. There are published reviews showing that. There is, however–so far as we can tell–no printed evidence that the “The Story of an Hour” set off a scandal among readers.

Nevertheless, it is true that, as Emily Toth says in Unveiling Kate Chopin , “Kate Chopin had to disguise reality. She had to have her heroine die. A story in which an unhappy wife is suddenly widowed, becomes rich, and lives happily ever after . . . would have been much too radical, far too threatening in the 1890s. There were limits to what editors would publish, and what audiences would accept.”

New Q: Some students in my class think that Mrs. Mallard planned her husband’s death. Is there any evidence that she did?

A: If this were real life — if you knew Mrs. Mallard, if you had been a friend or a relative of hers, if you understood the way she thinks and watched the way she has been acting throughout her life — then maybe you could find some evidence to help you answer your question.  

But “The Story of an Hour” is fiction. It’s a work of art.

One advantage of art — of a story, a film, a song, etc. — is that it can let us see something that we could not see any other way. In this story, for example, we can see inside of Mrs. Mallard’s mind to know exactly what she is thinking for that one hour in her life. That’s something we almost never know about another person, just as other people almost never know exactly what we’re thinking.  

So a good story, a good work of art, is like a gift. It gives us something special.  

But one disadvantage of art — of a story, a film, a song, etc. — is that what it gives us is all we have. We don’t know anything more about Mrs. Mallard than what we have in those words of the story. We can’t know any more about her, because there is nothing more to know. If Kate Chopin had written other stories about Mrs. Mallard in which she told us more about her life and what kind of person she is, then maybe we could better answer the question.

But this is the only story in which Kate Chopin writes about Mrs. Mallard. If you read the story again, if you study the words in it carefully, you’ll see that there is no evidence that Mrs. Mallard planned her husband’s death. So we have to conclude that she did not. If Kate Chopin had wanted us to know that she did, then she would have told us that in the story.

New Q: This webpage has so many words on it! Why don’t you add some pictures or videos or podcasts?

A: Sorry to hear you are disappointed in this webpage.

We explain on this page what our readers over the past 20 years have been asking us about. Our readers are students, teachers, librarians, journalists, playwrights, filmmakers, translators, book club members, bloggers, podcast hosts, and other people in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Philippines, India, China, Brazil, and dozens of other countries around the world.

On this page and our other pages devoted to one of Kate Chopin’s short stories or novels, we describe in lots of short paragraphs what our readers have wanted to know. About 25% of our readers are not native speakers of English. So we try to answer their questions in English that is easy to understand.

We include at the top of a page like this a list of red links so our readers can get quickly to what exactly it is they need to know.

But you might try looking at some other pages on our site: Our page, for example, where you can watch three short films based on Kate Chopin’s stories. Or our page in which we link to a video where you can listen to a song Kate Chopin wrote. Or our page in which we link to a podcast  where you can hear specialists talk about Kate Chopin’s stories. Or our News page in which you will find lots of images and colors .

Q: I’m studying literature in France and am looking for a film adaptation of “The Story of an Hour.” Does one exist?

A: Thomas Bonner, Jr. (Xavier University of Louisiana) offers this response:

The Joy That Kills was produced by Cypress Productions in 1984 and released the following year as part of the Public Broadcast System’s American Playhouse series. Tina Rathborne (sometimes spelled Rathbone or Rathbourne) directed; she and Nancy Dyer wrote the script. Set in New Orleans in the 1870s, the film does not follow the almost existential lack of a specific setting and time in “The Story of an Hour.” It leans toward the New Orleans settings of The Awakening . It was filmed in one of the historic houses in the French Quarter of New Orleans with Ann Masson being the film’s art director. I always felt that the story, if it has a specific setting, is closer to the St. Louis area as it evokes Chopin’s loss of her father in a train wreck and that the film helped explicate The Awakening more than the story.

And Emily Toth (Louisiana State University) adds that “there’s at least one other film of ‘The Story of an Hour,’ by Ishtar Films.”

Q: Do you happen to know if “The Story of an Hour” is published in any Swedish book or magazine? I have found it online (Swedish title: Berättelsen om en timme ), but nowhere in print. I have an old photocopy of the short story, which is obviously from a book, but no one I have talked to (including librarians) knows where it is from.

A: We have found no answer to this question. If you have useful information, would you contact us ?

A Graphic Short Story Based on “The Story of an Hour”

Cartoonist Gabrielle Bell’s Cecil and Jordan in New York (Drawn and Quarterly, 2009) is a collection of graphic short stories.

Here is the first page of a story called “One Afternoon,” based on Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”:

Gabrielle Bell reimagines “The Story of an Hour” within a larger narrative, which, the New York Times says, “is narrated by a young woman who’s just moved to the city with her filmmaker boyfriend; it’s a clear-cut tale of impecunious 20-something artists until halfway through, when the narrator abruptly transforms herself into a chair, gets taken home by someone who finds her on the sidewalk and decides that her old life won’t miss her. The engine of these mercilessly observed stories is squirminess: emotional awkwardness so intense that it can erupt into magic or just knot itself into scars.”

A Christmas Opera Based on “The Story of an Hour”

In December, 2019, the Gramercy Opera in New York at Brooklyn’s Montauk Club presented an opera “Story of an Hour.” The opera company’s announcement read:

“Based on the 1894 short story by Kate Chopin, in a classic operetta-esque style, ‘Story of an Hour’ is a one-act opera set in the 1800s during the Christmas season. It follows the story of a fatal train accident and the consequences it has on two young women — one of whose husbands is believed to have been on the train.”

“Story of an Hour” was the winner of the inaugural Salzman-Gramercy Opera Advancement Prize. The music was written by Michael Valenti and the libretto by Kleban- and Stacey Luftig. The cast included Kate Fruchterman, Sable Strout, Aaron Theno, and Jay Lucas Chacon.

The opera played on Dec. 13 and 14, 2019. You can see an excerpt of the opera .

Scott Little, a student at Kent State University in Ohio, created an opera based on” The Story of an Hour” in 2018.

Accurate texts of “The Story of an Hour”

The Complete Works of Kate Chopin . Edited by Per Seyersted. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1969, 2006.

Kate Chopin: A Vocation and a Voice. Edited by Emily Toth. New York: Penguin, 1991.

Kate Chopin: Complete Novels and Stories . Edited by Sandra Gilbert. New York: Library of America, 2002.

Books and Book Chapters about “The Story of an Hour”

Fox, Heather A.  Arranging Stories: Framing Social Commentary in Short Story Collections by Southern Women Writers . University Press of Mississippi, 2022.

Ostman, Heather, and Kate O’Donoghue, eds.  Kate Chopin in Context: New Approaches . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Rajakumar, Mohanalakshmi and Geetha Rajeswar. “What Did She Die of? ‘The Story of an Hour’ in the Middle East Classroom”: 173–85.

Wan, Xuemei.   Beauty in Love and Death — An Aesthetic Reading of Kate Chopin’s Works  [in Chinese]. China Social Sciences P, 2012.

Gale, Robert L.  Characters and Plots in the Fiction of Kate Chopin . Jefferson, N C: McFarland, 2009.

Beer, Janet, ed.  The Cambridge Companion to Kate Chopin . Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 2008.

Ostman, Heather, ed.  Kate Chopin in the Twenty-First  Century:   New Critical Essays . Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars, 2008.

Beer, Janet.   Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Studies in Short Fiction . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Stein, Allen F.  Women and Autonomy in Kate Chopin’s Short Fiction . New York: Peter Lang, 2005.

Perrin-Chenour, Marie-Claude.  Kate Chopin: Ruptures  [in French]. Paris, France: Belin, 2002.

Evans, Robert C.  Kate Chopin’s Short Fiction: A Critical Companion . West Cornwall, CT: Locust Hill, 2001.

Beer, Janet.   Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Studies in Short Fiction.  New York: Macmillan–St. Martin’s, 1997.

Koloski, Bernard.  Kate Chopin: A Study of the Short Fiction . New York: Twayne, 1996.

Boren, Lynda S., and Sara deSaussure Davis (eds.),  Kate Chopin Reconsidered: Beyond the Bayou . Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1992.

Ewell, Barbara C. “Kate Chopin and the Dream of Female Selfhood”: 157–65.

Toth, Emily, ed.  A Vocation and a Voice by Kate Chopin.  New York: Penguin, 1991.

Showalter, Elaine.  Sister’s Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women’s Writing . Oxford, England: Oxford UP, 1991.

Papke, Mary E.  Verging on the Abyss: The Social Fiction of Kate Chopin and Edith Wharton . New York: Greenwood, 1990.

Bonner, Thomas Jr.,  The Kate Chopin Companion . New York: Greenwood, 1988.

Ewell, Barbara C.  Kate Chopin . New York: Ungar, 1986.

Skaggs, Peggy.  Kate Chopin . Boston: Twayne, 1985.

Stein, Allen F.  After the Vows Were Spoken: Marriage in American Literary Realism . Columbus: Ohio UP, 1984.

Cahill, Susan.  Women and Fiction: Short Stories by and about Women . New York: New American Library, 1975.

Leary, Lewis, ed.  The Awakening   and Other Stories by Kate Chopin . New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970.

Seyersted, Per.  Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography . Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1969.

Rankin, Daniel,  Kate Chopin and Her Creole Stories . Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1932.

Selected articles about “The Story of an Hour”

Some of the works listed here may be available online through university or public libraries.

Hu, Aihua. “The Art of Repetition in ‘The Story of an Hour’.”  ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews , vol. 35, no. 4, Oct. 2022, pp. 458–63.

Hu, Aihua. “’The Story of an Hour’: Mrs. Mallard’s Ethically Tragic Song.”  ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews , vol. 35, no. 2, Apr. 2022, pp. 141–47.

Ramos, Paula Pope. “She felt it, creeping out of the sky”: Loucura e Morte como Libertação na Ficção de Mulheres do Século XIX.” [Madness and death as liberation in 19th century women’s fiction. ] Itinerários–Revista de Literatura , issue 54, Jan-June 2022, pp. 73-83.

Ahmetspahić, Adisa, and Damir Kahrić. “It’s a Man’s World: Re-Examination of the Female Perspective in Chopin’s ‘Désirée’s Baby’ and ‘The Story of an Hour.’”  ESSE Messenger , vol. 29, no. 1, Summer 2020, pp. 23–37.

Geriguis, Lora E. “The ‘It’ and the ‘Joy That Kills:’ An Ecocritical Reading of Chopin’s ‘The Story of an Hour’.”  Explicator , vol. 78, no. 1, Jan. 2020, pp. 5–8.

Yazgı, Cihan. “Tragic Elements and Discourse-Time in ‘The Story of an Hour.’”  The Explicator , vol. 78, no. 3–4, July 2020, pp. 147–152.

Koloski, Bernard. “Kate Chopin.” Oxford Bibliographies in American Literature, edited by Jackson Bryer, Oxford University Press, 2020 [update].

Distel, Kristin M. “‘Free! Body and Soul Free!’: The Docile Female Body in Kate Chopin’s ‘The Story of an Hour’.”  New Woman’s Writing: Contextualising Fiction, Poetry and Philosophy , Subashish Bhattacharjee and Girindra Narayan Ray, editors. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018, pp. 65–78.

Doloff, Steven. “Kate Chopin’s Lexical Diagnostic in ‘The Story of an Hour’.”  Notes And Queries  61 (259).4 (2014): 580–81.

Berenji, Fahimeh Q. “Time and Gender in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’ and Kate Chopin’s ‘The Story of an Hour’.”  Tarih Kültür Ve Sanat Araştırmaları Dergisi/Journal of History, Culture & Art Research , vol. 2, no. 2, 2013, pp. 221–234.

Sümer, Sema Zafer. “‘The Story of an Hour’ Or The Story of a Lost Lady in The Shadow of the Patriarchy’s Ideology.”  Selçuk Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi  28.(2012): 191-196.

Diederich, Nicole. “Sharing Chopin: Teaching ‘The Story of an Hour’ to Specialized Populations.”  Arkansas Review  43 (2012): 116–20.

Mayer, Gary H. “A Matter of Behavior: A Semantic Analysis of Five Kate Chopin Stories.” ETC.: A Review of General Semantics 67.1 (2010): 94-104.

Shen, Dan. “Wen Xue Ren Zhi: Ju Ti Yu Jing Yu Gui Yue Xing Yu Jing.” [in Chinese] Foreign Literature Studies/Wai Guo Wen Xue Yan Jiu 32.5 (2010): 122–8.

Jamil, S. Selina. “Emotions in ‘The Story of an Hour’.” Explicator 67.3 (2009): 215-220.

Wan, Xuemei. “Kate Chopin’s View on Death and Freedom in The Story of an Hour.” English Language Teaching 2.4 (2009): 167-170.

Emmert, Scott D. “Naturalism and the Short Story Form in Kate Chopin’s ‘The Story of an Hour’.” Scribbling Women & the Short Story Form: Approaches by American & British Women Writers. 74-85. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2008.

Chen, Hui and Chang Wei. “Meng Jing Shi Fen De Fen Ceng Gou Si Jie Du.” [in Chinese] Qilu Xue Kan/Qilu Journal 4 (2007): 111–4.

Cunningham, Mark. “The Autonomous Female Self and the Death of Louise Mallard in Kate Chopin’s ‘Story of an Hour’.” English Language Notes 42 (2004): 48-55.

Deneau, Daniel P. “Chopin’s ‘The Story of an Hour’.” Explicator 61 (2003): 210-13.

Berkove, Lawrence I. “Fatal Self-Assertion in Kate Chopin’s ‘The Story of an Hour’.” American Literary Realism 32 (Winter 2000): 152-58.

Toth, Emily.  Unveiling Kate Chopin . Jackson, MS: UP of Mississippi, 1999.

Benfey, Christopher.  Degas in New Orleans: Encounters in the Creole World of Kate Chopin and George Washington Cable . Berkeley: U of California P, 1997.

Johnson, Rose M. “A Rational Pedagogy for Kate Chopin’s Passional Fiction: Using Burke’s Scene-Act Ratio to Teach ‘Story’ and ‘Storm’.”  Conference of College Teachers of English Studies 60 (1996): 122-28.

Koloski, Bernard. “The Anthologized Chopin: Kate Chopin’s Short Stories in Yesterday’s and Today’s Anthologies.” Louisiana Literature 11 (1994): 18-30.

Mitchell, Angelyn. “Feminine Double Consciousness in Kate Chopin’s ‘The Story of an Hour’.” CEAMagazine 5.1 (1992): 59–64.

Miner, Madonne M. “Veiled Hints: An Affective Stylist’s Reading of Kate Chopin’s ‘Story of an Hour’.” Markham Review 11 (1982): 29–32.

The Story of an Hour

Kate chopin, everything you need for every book you read..

Louise Mallard has a weak heart that puts her at risk if she becomes too animated. After hearing from Richards —a friend of the family—that Louise’s husband Brently Mallard has died in a train accident, her sister Josephine takes great care to break the news to Louise in a gentle, measured way. Despite Josephine’s best efforts, though, Louise is inconsolable with grief. She weeps intensely into her sister’s arms before fleeing into her bedroom, shutting and locking the door behind herself.

In her bedroom, she collapses into a chair facing a window and, exhausted by her own sobbing, stares outside at a collection of newly blossomed trees and various stretches of blue in the sky. Life on the streets below goes along like normal, and as Louise sits motionless in the chair, she begins to sense with fear that something—some feeling—is approaching her. She is unable to define or name the approaching sensation because it is too abstract, too vague. Scared, she tries to keep the feeling at bay, but it’s no use because everything—the new spring life outside, the smell of rain, the expansive sky—seems to embody the sensation, and she feels it reaching toward her.

Suddenly she lets her guard down and finds herself mouthing the word “free” over and over again. No longer passive, her heart beats fast and her rushing blood enlivens her. Joy floods her and she imagines the life ahead of her with complete excitement and happiness: despite the fact that she and her husband enjoyed a stable, loving marriage, she is flooded with ecstasy by the prospect of no longer being required to live dependent upon her husband, upon anyone. Now the remainder of her life belongs only to her, and she is overjoyed at the idea of this freedom.

Worried that Louise is making herself sick by staying in her room alone, Josephine kneels on the ground and speaks through the door’s keyhole, imploring her sister to let her in. After uttering a quick prayer that her new life will be long, Louise rises and confidently strides out of the bedroom. Together with her sister, she starts walking down the steps toward where Richards waits at the bottom.

The sound of keys fiddling in the front door travels into the house, and suddenly the door opens and Brently Mallard nonchalantly enters. Apparently he had been nowhere near the train accident that had supposedly killed him. In an effort to protect Louise from the utter shock of seeing her living husband, Richards quickly tries to obscure Brently, but to no avail, and Louise lets out her final sound: a sharp scream that startles and mystifies her husband. When the doctors inspect Louise’s dead body, they decide that she died because her heart was too excited—too overjoyed—to see her husband.

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The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

In Kate Chopin’s "The Story of an Hour", the main character, Mrs. Mallard, is a married woman with a heart condition. Her husband is away and news comes that he has perished in a horrific train accident. Her sister gently breaks the news to her, and silently, Mrs. Mallard rejoices. It turns out that she is not happily married and the thought of freedom from her bonds of marriage gives her joy. She assumes that she will be playing the mournful widow, but is she? This is a great story for your middle school students to read!

Student Activities for The Story of an Hour

Essential Questions for "The Story of an Hour"

• What makes you happy?
• Can you tell truth from falsity?

Mrs. Louise Mallard is a sickly woman. Her heart is extremely weak. So when her husband is presumably killed in a violent train accident, her sister, Josephine, and her husband’s friend try to break the sad news to her gently, as to not cause her heart to fail. Predictably, Louise reacts to the news with tears. She flees upstairs, locking herself in her room.

The tears subside, and Louise begins to look at all of the beauty in the outside world. She suddenly realizes that she is free. With her husband dead, she admits to herself that she will be happy; although she loved him at times, there were time when she did not, which made her very depressed. Now with him gone, she could go out into the world and be “free, free, free!”

Josephine, fearing for Louise’s health, begs her to come out of the room. Finally, she does. While descending the stairs, she is greeted by her husband opening the door, disheveled, but alive and well. Louise screams and collapses of a heart attack. The doctor claims that she was so overjoyed to discover her husband still alive, but the reader is acutely aware that she, in fact, has died because she was so acutely disappointed by the loss of her newly found freedom.

How To Discuss the Themes Present in The Story of an Hour

Identify themes, talk about freedom, discuss social expectations, analyze author’s intent, frequently asked questions about the story of an hour by kate chopin, when was the story written and published, where does "the story of an hour" take place, who are the story's primary characters, try 1 month for.

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What caused the Dali to slam into Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge? What we know about what led up to the collapse

By Kerry Breen

Updated on: March 27, 2024 / 7:43 PM EDT / CBS News

Shocking video showed the moment a massive cargo ship collided with Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge early Tuesday morning, sending parts of the decades-old suspension bridge, along with people and vehicles, into the Patapsco River. 

Six people who were on the bridge are missing and presumed dead , officials said late Tuesday. Two others were rescued from the water. All eight were construction workers who were repairing potholes on the bridge, officials said. There were 22 Indian nationals, including two pilots, aboard the cargo ship. 

Investigators and officials are now crafting a timeline of events, including what caused the Singapore-owned vessel , called the Dali, to hit the bridge just minutes after leaving port . Here's what we know so far. 

What caused the Dali to slam into the Francis Scott Key Bridge? 

The Dali, which was chartered by shipping giant Maersk and operated by Synergy Marine Group, hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge shortly after leaving the Port of Baltimore. 

An unclassified memo issued by CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said the ship reported losing propulsion . Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said the ship's crew reported a "power issue." A spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, said the agency still needs to verify that the Dali lost power before striking the bridge column. 

Two U.S. officials told CBS News multiple alarms rang out on the ship, alerting pilots and crew to an issue on board. The crew ran several system tests to attempt to remedy the loss of propulsion from the motor, but the tests proved unsuccessful. At that point, the ship's pilots alerted the Maryland Department of Transportation and the Maryland Transit Authority. 

That alert allowed local officials to stop traffic on the bridge and likely saved lives , officials said. 

The ship's crew tried to deploy the anchor, though it remains unclear how much progress was made, multiple officials said. The massive ship is over 900 feet long and was moving at about 8 knots, or just over 9 miles per hour. Authorities said that speed is considered "very rapid." 

Captain Michael Burns, executive director of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy's Maritime Center for Responsible Energy, told CBS Boston  that stopping a cargo ship is difficult, especially in such a short time. 

"It's extremely challenging, and takes years of experience and training in order to be able to do this safely," he said. "It can take up to a mile for some of these ships to get stopped, depending on the circumstances, so we really need to think well out, miles ahead of the ship."

Why did the Dali lose propulsion? 

It's not clear what caused the vessel to lose propulsion, officials said. 

A spokesperson for the NTSB told CBS Baltimore that it had collected the ship's data recorder, and would review and analyze the material there to determine what happened aboard the vessel in the moments before the collision. 

That data recorder will also be used to establish a timeline of events. 

What happens when a ship loses propulsion? 

James Mercante, the president of the New York Board of Pilot Commissioners, told CBS News that a ship that has lost steering and power is essentially "a dead ship just being carried by the current or its own momentum." 

He highlighted a moment in the video of the crash that appears to show a "big, big puff of black, real dark black smoke" which might indicate that the vessel's power was "restored at the last minute" and that the pilot was "attempting to make an emergency maneuver" to avoid hitting the bridge. However, he emphasized that it would be difficult to stop the massive cargo ship, especially in such a short time. 

"It would take quite a while — probably the length of five [or] six football fields — to bring that ship to a stop, even after dropping the anchors, because of its power and momentum," said Mercante. "This is a behemoth." 

• Francis Scott Key Bridge
• Bridge Collapse

Kerry Breen is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University's Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News' TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use.

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The magnitude of Pence refusing to endorse Trump

A procession of prominent Republicans who wanted to guide their party away from Donald Trump in 2024 have come around to him as the former president became the party’s presumptive nominee. And many have offered virtually the same justification in grudgingly offering support: He’s at least preferable to President Biden .

“I think he’d be better than Joe Biden,” said Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. “It’s as simple as that.”

“I mean, the alternative is Biden,” said New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.

“The choice before the American people is crystal clear: It’s Donald Trump or Joe Biden,” said Senate Minority Whip John Thune (S.D.).

Trump’s own vice president offered a very different take Friday.

In declining to endorse Trump , Mike Pence made a major statement that undercut other Trump-skeptical Republicans who have suggested through their actions that there is no alternative. His decision could also provide a permission structure for others whose endorsements are up in the air, like Nikki Haley , to hold off.

“It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year,” Pence said told Fox News on Friday.

But it did come as something of a surprise. Pence, after all, had raised his hand at an August debate when he and the other GOP presidential candidates were asked whether they would support even a criminally convicted Trump if he were nominated.

Pence’s stated reasoning is also notable. It’s not that he views Trump as dangerous to democracy, or even so much that he’s upset over Trump’s attacking him for his refusal to try to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6 , 2021. (Some rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence,” and Trump attacked Pence on Twitter even after being informed of the Capitol unrest.)

Instead, Pence pitched the current version of Trump as insufficiently conservative on issues such as abortion , the national debt, and China and TikTok .

“Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years,” Pence said, “and that is why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign.”

Pence maintained that he wouldn’t support Biden, but he otherwise said he would keep his ballot private. Sometimes, candidates will say that they’re voting for a candidate but that it’s not technically an endorsement; Pence wouldn’t even go that far.

That casts a spotlight on Republicans who have faulted Trump over Jan. 6 or his chaotic governing style but have indicated they have no choice now that he’s set to be the nominee. They’ve treated a Trump endorsement as something that’s pro forma because they share a party label and a common enemy — no matter what they’ve said before.

“As the Republican leader of the Senate, it should not be a front-page headline that I will support the Republican nominee for president,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said last week.

Pence often says, “I’m a Christian, a conservative and a Republican — in that order.” In this case, he’s suggesting the second one indeed carries more weight than the third. And that’s a challenge to other Republicans who are emphasizing the third one.

Pence’s lack of an endorsement also highlights the chasm between GOP elected officials and those who actually served alongside Trump in his Cabinet. NBC News last summer reached out to 44 former Cabinet officials and found that only four of them would commit to backing Trump in what was then the early stages of the primary contest. Many have turned into strong Trump critics, like former chief of staff John F. Kelly and former defense secretaries Jim Mattis and Mark T. Esper.

Those officials have something in common with many former allies who have broken with Trump once and for all: They don’t have immediate political futures to mind — and Trump-supporting political bases to appeal to.

Pence is perhaps in that camp as well; his 2024 presidential campaign crashed and burned thanks to Trump turning his base against a vice president who had served him loyally. But there’s at least a feasible path to relevance for Pence in the conservative movement, and he nonetheless has taken a very significant step in bucking Trump.

Now we’ll see if others might follow his example.

What is Holy Saturday? What the day before Easter means for Christians around the world

Easter Sunday is this upcoming weekend, which means the preceding Saturday is known as Holy Saturday.

According to Britannica, Holy Saturday is a Christian religious observance that ends the Lenten season. The observance "commemorates the final day of Christ's death," according to Britannica, which many Christians traditionally associate with his "triumphant descent into hell or 'to the dead.'" The day comes between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

Easter is an important holiday for the millions of people around the world who follow the Christian faith as the day celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The holiday occurs after a 40-day period known as Lent.

Church services, reflection and prayer are some ways that people observe the holiday. Others enjoy a more secular celebration of Easter filled with bunnies, baskets and colorful eggs.

Good Friday: Are banks, post offices, UPS and FedEx open? Here's what to know

When is Holy Saturday? When is Easter?

This year, Holy Saturday is on Saturday, March 30, 2024. Easter Sunday is on Sunday, March 31, 2024.

Why is Easter so early in 2024?

Easter's date changes depending on the year. The holiday is one of several "moveable feasts" in the liturgical year, the History Channel reports. Others include  Ash Wednesday  and  Palm Sunday .

Easter is observed on the first Sunday following the  Paschal full moon , which is the first full moon on or after  the spring equinox . Since Western Christianity uses the Gregorian calendar, Easter typically falls on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25, according to the History Channel.

In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, the date of Easter also varies. The branch follows the Julian calendar, meaning orthodox Easter falls between April 4 and May 8, the History Channel reports. This year, it will take place on Sunday, May 5, 2024. 

Contributing: Olivia Munson, USA TODAY

Gabe Hauari is a national trending news reporter at USA TODAY. You can follow him on X  @GabeHauari  or email him at [email protected].

Here are the terms you should know to prepare for oncoming severe weather

Greater Cincinnati is bracing for a " significant weather event " Tuesday, including the possibility of strong tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds.

While many will be glued to their phones throughout the day to check for weather updates, meteorologists use their own terminology that might be confusing.

Here's a breakdown of what some of these weather-related terms mean, with definitions from the National Weather Service .

What causes tornadoes

Tornadoes are the most violent storms caused by a violently rotating, funnel column of air touching the ground. Tornadoes generally occur near the trailing edge of a thunderstorm. It is not uncommon to see clear, sunlit skies behind a tornado.

Skies can sometimes appear green before a tornado because of the scattering of light in a storm .

Winds of a tornado may reach 300 miles per hour and damage can stretch several miles.

Some tornadoes are clearly visible, while rain or nearby low-hanging clouds obscure others. Tornadoes develop extremely rapidly and may dissipate just as quickly. Most tornadoes are on the ground for less than 15 minutes.

Before a tornado hits, the wind may die down and the air may become very still. A cloud of debris can mark the location of a tornado even if a funnel is not visible.  

Tornado warning and watches: which is worse?

A tornado warning is an alert that signifies you should seek shelter.

Tornado watch: An alert signifying that weather conditions favor thunderstorms capable of producing a tornado within a certain location. People caught in a tornado watch area are urged to be prepared.

Tornado warning: An alert signifying that a tornado is occurring or will occur at a specific location. People caught in a tornado warning are urged to seek shelter.

What is a long-track tornado?

A tornado that is expected to remain on the ground substantially longer than an ordinary twister is called a long-track tornado.

The time a tornado is on the ground can range from an instant to several hours, although the typical time is around 5 to 10 minutes. Supercell tornadoes tend to be longer-lived, while those pawned by squall lines and bow echoes may only last for a few minutes. Tornado movement can range from virtually stationary to more than 60 miles per hour.

What is a supercell?

Shorthand for a supercell thunderstorm , it is a storm "consisting of one quasi-steady to rotating updraft which may exist for several hours." It is possibly the most dangerous of "convective storm types," generating the majority of long-lived, strong and violent tornadoes.

How is tornado intensity measured?

EF Scale: The Enhanced Fujita Scale is a rating of a tornado's strength calculated by surveying damage and comparing it with damage to similar objects at specific wind speeds. It does not measure the strength of an active tornado.

Other weather terms to know

Cold front: "A zone separating two air masses, of which the cooler, denser mass is advancing and replacing the warmer."

Flash flood: "A rapid and extreme flow of high water into a normally dry area, or a rapid water level rise in a stream or creek above a predetermined flood level, beginning within six hours of the causative event."

Hail: "Showery precipitation in the form of irregular pellets or balls of ice more than 5 mm in diameter, falling from a cumulonimbus cloud."

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The Bizarre Chinese Murder Plot Behind Netflix’s ‘3 Body Problem’

Lin Qi, a billionaire who helped produce the science-fiction hit, was poisoned to death by a disgruntled executive. His attacker now faces the death penalty.

By David Pierson

Lin Qi was a billionaire with a dream. The video game tycoon had wanted to turn one of China’s most famous science-fiction novels, “The Three-Body Problem,” into a global hit. He had started working with Netflix and the creators of the HBO series “Game of Thrones” to bring the alien invasion saga to international audiences.

But Mr. Lin did not live to see “ 3 Body Problem ” premiere on Netflix last month, drawing millions of viewers.

He was poisoned to death in Shanghai in 2020, at age 39, by a disgruntled colleague, in a killing that riveted the country’s tech and video-gaming circles where he had been a prominent rising star. That colleague, Xu Yao, a 43-year-old former executive in Mr. Lin’s company, was last month sentenced to death for murder by a court in Shanghai, which called his actions “extremely despicable.”

The court has made few specific details public, but Mr. Lin’s killing was, as a Chinese news outlet put it, “as bizarre as a Hollywood blockbuster.” Chinese media reports, citing sources in his company and court documents, have described a tale of deadly corporate ambition and rivalry with a macabre edge. Sidelined at work, Mr. Xu reportedly exacted vengeance with meticulous planning, including by testing poisons on small animals in a makeshift lab. (He not only killed Mr. Lin, but also poisoned his own replacement.)

Mr. Lin had spent millions of dollars in 2014 buying up copyrights and licenses connected to the original Chinese science-fiction book, “The Three-Body Problem,” and two others in a trilogy written by the Chinese author Liu Cixin. “The Three-Body Problem” tells the story of an engineer, called upon by the Chinese authorities to look into a spate of suicides by scientists, who discovers an extraterrestrial plot. Mr. Lin had wanted to build a franchise of global television shows and films akin to “Star Wars” and centered on the novels.

Mr. Lin would eventually link up with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the creators of the television series “Game of Thrones,” to work on the Netflix project. Mr. Lin’s gaming company, Youzu Interactive, which goes by Yoozoo in English, is no stranger to the HBO hit; its best-known release is an online strategy game based on the show called “Game of Thrones: Winter Is Coming.”

Mr. Lin’s fate would change when he hired Mr. Xu, a lawyer, in 2017 to head a subsidiary of Yoozoo called The Three-Body Universe that held the rights to Mr. Liu’s novels. But not long afterward, Mr. Xu was demoted and his pay was cut, apparently because of poor performance. He became furious, according to the Chinese business magazine Caixin.

As Mr. Xu plotted his revenge, Caixin reported, he built a lab in an outlying district of Shanghai where he experimented with hundreds of poisons he bought off the dark web by testing them on dogs and cats and other pets. Caixin said Mr. Xu was both fascinated and inspired by the American hit TV series “Breaking Bad,” about a cancer-stricken chemistry teacher who teaches himself to make and sell methamphetamine, eventually becoming a drug lord.

Between September and December 2020, Mr. Xu began spiking beverages such as coffee, whiskey and drinking water with methylmercury chloride and bringing them into the office, Caixin reported, citing court documents. The report’s details could not be independently confirmed.

Calls to Yoozoo and the Shanghai court went unanswered. Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The plot is as bizarre as a Hollywood blockbuster, and the technique is professional enough to be called the Chinese version of ‘Breaking Bad,’” Phoenix News, a Chinese news outlet, said last month.

According to a story by The Hollywood Reporter in January, Mr. Benioff said the killing was “certainly disconcerting.” “When you work in this business, you’re expecting all sorts of issues to arise. Somebody poisoning the boss is not generally one of them,” he was quoted as saying.

Police arrested Mr. Xu on Dec. 18, 2020, the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court said on its official WeChat account as it announced the verdict and sentencing. Mr. Xu reportedly declined to confess to the crime and did not disclose what poison he had used, complicating doctors’ efforts to save Mr. Lin’s life.

The court said that Mr. Xu had plotted to poison Mr. Lin and four other people over an office dispute. Its post included a picture of a bespectacled Mr. Xu in the courtroom wearing an oversized beige cardigan surrounded by three police officers. The statement said more than 50 people, including members of Mr. Xu’s and Mr. Lin’s family, attended the sentencing.

The Three-Body Universe, the Yoozoo subsidiary, did not respond to a request for comment, but its chief executive, Zhao Jilong, posted on his WeChat account, “Justice has been served,” according to Chinese state media.

Before his untimely death, Mr. Lin was something of a celebrity in the world of young Chinese entrepreneurs. He had built his fortune in the early 2010s, riding a wave of popularity for mobile games. His bid to popularize Mr. Liu’s novels was a rare attempt to export Chinese popular culture — something that has eluded China as its government yearns to wield the same soft power the United States commands with its movies, music and sports stars.

Six years after “The Three-Body Problem” was first published in 2008, an English version translated by Ken Liu was released to widespread acclaim. The book won the Hugo Award, a major science-fiction prize, for best novel. It counted Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg among its fans.

While Netflix is not available in China, “3 Body Problem” has still set off a backlash among Chinese viewers who have been able to access the platform by using virtual private networks, or who have seen pirated versions of the show. Users on Chinese social media expressed anger that the Netflix adaptation Westernized aspects of the story, and said the show sought to demonize some of the Chinese characters.

Even the People’s Liberation Army’s propaganda wing has weighed in on the series. In an editorial published on Saturday on its website, China Military Online, it called the Netflix series an example of American “cultural hegemony.”

“It can be clearly seen that after the United States seized this popular intellectual property with its superpower strength, it wanted to transform and remake it,” the editorial said. “The purpose was to eliminate as much as possible the reputation of modern China.”

Li You contributed research.

David Pierson covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. He has been a journalist for more than two decades. More about David Pierson