"The Story of An Hour"
Kate Chopin (1894)
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.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. 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 some one 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.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her 1
two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under hte breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body. She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. 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. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
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. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! 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!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for admission. "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."
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.
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第二篇：A book report on The Story of an Hour
北京第二外国语学院 英语学院翻译方向 大三写作作业 （二） 086班 孙苇桐 11号 指导教师：栗小兰
A Book Report on the Story of an Hour
The Story of an Hour, first published on December 6, 1894, in Vogue magazine, is a
short story written by Kate Chopin (1851-1904) who is an American writer of
short stories and novels. The story ,set in the house of Mr Mallard, unfolds a
one-hour span of life，from spiritually reborn to physically death, of Ms Mallard.
Concerned with Ms Mallard’ affliction of heart trouble, great care was taken by
her sister Josephine and her husband’s friend Richard ,who worked in the
newspaper office and double-checked the truth when the news of Mr. Mallard’
death arrived, before they broke to her this grievous news . Hit by the
thunderbolt head-on, she locked herself in the bedroom upstairs after a
conventional keening ，slumping into her chair , gazing outside the window and
sobbing. A spring sight and patches of sky escaping from piles of clouds filtered
through the window.
Suddenly, an elusive hint of euphoria that she was free occurred to her even
though she was frightened by the thought herself and striving to beat it back at
first. Hard as she restrained the vicious thought, she failed and succumbed to it
at the thought of gaining freedom in soul and body and not needing to
compromising to the public opinion upon marriage .
Worried about Ms Mallard, Josephine pounded upon her sister’s door to make
sure she was not doing something ill. Contradict with Josephine’s anxiety, Ms
Mallard was holding a pleasant hope towards her coming free future with no one
disturbing her . But Brantley Mallard –her “dead” husband appeared at the
door when she descending downstairs with her sister. It actually was a mix-up.
Unbearable the whirlwind of ups and downs, Ms Mallard was knocked down by
a sudden heart disease which the doctor diagnosed as “of joy that kills”.
Ms Mallard is a weak–will housewife who depresses her strong desire to control
her destiny. Dominated by her husband, she suffered constant stress which may
probably cause her heart disease. And it’s such disease that deprived her life at
the sight of her husband’s return and in thought of the loss of the freedom within
北京第二外国语学院 英语学院翻译方向 大三写作作业 （二） 086班 孙苇桐 11号 指导教师：栗小兰 grasp and of that she had to go back to the old life again. Some say that Chopin
tricked the readers with an unexpected ending, however, she initially inform us
of Ms Mallard’s heart condition as a promise to the doom , but along with the
developments of the story we almost forget it until the end the story when we
finally understand Chopin’s
excellent use of foreshadowing. Outwardly , it seems quite a paradox that death
is inevitably associated with dead seasons while Mr. Mallard’s supposed death is
set in spring , after a paragraph or two we begin to realize that the symbolism
lies in the imagery of the nature. As Ms Mallard looked outside, the freshly fallen
rain and the newly grown trees came into view, implying her renewal and rebirth.
The clouds, a metaphor for the shadows hovering her agony marriage, began to
part and make way for a fresh start. All these are symbols of her new-sprung
freedom. But her first reaction was to restrain such feeling because the then
social convention would pour scorns on this criminal-like thought, which rightly
explain why she wept at once even though what happened might be what she had
long wished ------she had to act in a typical way women in that period would do
in the presence of her sister and her husband’s best friend, to win the public
sympathy. This really counts on an amazing irony!
The story of an hour unveils in half concealing the inequality between men and
women in late 19th century where women are depressed under the man-oriented
society ,and the heroine well reflects the typical image of woman in that period of
time. It also exemplified Chopin’s beliefs about women’s roles in marriage and
feminine identity. Personally, I’m quite fond of this delicate story. A few lines
weave a full picture of a woman’s whole life, simple but profound.