Summary (Detailed)

In Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour", Louise Mallard, who has a weak heart, is told that her husband has been killed in a railway accident. Alone in her room she discovers, to her own surprise, a joyful sense of freedom, but when her husband walks in alive an hour later, she dies, and the doctors say it was of "joy that kills".

Because Mrs Mallard has heart trouble, her sister Josephine breaks the news of Brently Mallard's death gently, with his friend Richards beside her. Louise weeps at once and then goes to her room alone. Sitting before an open window full of the sights, sounds and scents of spring, she feels something approaching that she at first fights, then welcomes: the word "free". She realises that the years ahead will belong to her alone, and prays that life may be long. She comes downstairs like a goddess of Victory, just as Brently, who was nowhere near the accident, opens the front door. Louise dies on the spot, and the doctors' verdict, "the joy that kills", is the story's final irony.

"The Story of an Hour": A Detailed Summary

Introduction

"The Story of an Hour" by the American writer Kate Chopin (1850–1904) was written in 1894 and first published in Vogue in December of that year under the title "The Dream of an Hour". It is a very short story, about a thousand words long, and the whole of its action takes place in a single hour in the Mallards' house. It is told by a third-person narrator who lets us see into Louise Mallard's mind.

Breaking the News

• Mrs Mallard is known to have heart trouble, so great care is taken to tell her gently that her husband, Brently Mallard, is dead.
• Her sister Josephine tells her, in broken sentences and veiled hints. Brently's friend Richards is there too. He had been at the newspaper office when news of a railroad disaster arrived, with Brently's name at the top of the list of those killed, and he had checked it with a second telegram before hurrying to the house.
• Louise does not react with stunned disbelief, as many women might. She weeps at once, with sudden, wild abandon, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief has passed, she goes up to her room alone and lets no one follow her.

Alone in Her Room

• She sinks into a comfortable, roomy armchair facing an open window, exhausted in body and spirit.
• Outside, everything speaks of spring and new life: the tops of the trees are quivering with fresh leaves, the delicious breath of rain is in the air, a pedlar is calling his wares in the street, someone is singing in the distance, sparrows are twittering in the eaves, and patches of blue sky show through the clouds.
• The narrator describes her as young, with a fair, calm face whose lines show repression and also a certain strength. Now she stares blankly at a patch of blue sky.

Something Approaching

• She feels something coming towards her out of the sky, through the sounds, scents and colours of the air. She does not know what it is, and she waits for it fearfully.
• She tries to beat it back with her will, but cannot. When she gives way, a word escapes her lips, and she whispers it over and over: "free, free, free!"
• The blank stare and the look of terror leave her eyes, which become keen and bright; her pulse beats fast and her blood warms her whole body.

Free, Body and Soul

• She does not stop to ask whether this is a monstrous joy. She knows she will weep again when she sees the kind, tender hands folded in death and the face that had only ever looked at her with love.
• But beyond that bitter moment she sees a long procession of years that will belong to her absolutely, and she spreads her arms to welcome them.
• In those years there will be no powerful will bending hers, whether out of kindness or cruelty; she now sees any such imposition of one person's will on another as a crime.
• She had loved him, sometimes; often she had not. It hardly matters now, compared with this sudden self-assertion, which she recognises as the strongest impulse of her being. She keeps whispering that she is free, body and soul.

The Door Opens

• Josephine kneels at the locked door, begging her to open it and warning that she will make herself ill. Louise tells her to go away: she is not making herself ill but drinking in "a very elixir of life" through the open window.
• She dreams of spring days and summer days and all the days that will be her own, and she breathes a quick prayer that life might be long. Only the day before, she had shuddered at the thought that life might be long.
• At last she opens the door. There is a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carries herself, without knowing it, like a goddess of Victory. Clasping her sister's waist, she goes down the stairs with her, and Richards is waiting at the bottom.

The Final Twist

• Someone opens the front door with a latchkey. It is Brently Mallard, a little travel-stained, calmly carrying his bag and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident and did not even know it had happened.
• He is amazed by Josephine's piercing cry and by Richards' quick movement to hide him from his wife's sight. But Richards is too late.
• When the doctors come, they say that Louise has died of heart disease, "of the joy that kills".

Conclusion

The doctors believe she died of joy at seeing her husband alive. The reader knows the truth: she died of the shock of losing, in an instant, the freedom she had tasted for less than an hour. This final irony sums up the story's quiet but powerful criticism of a marriage, and a society, that left a woman no life of her own.