The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and analyze the short story "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin. Specifically, it will examine the conflict of the story, and how society makes the protagonist, Mrs. Louise Mallard, a victim. Author Kate Chopin wrote this short story in 1894, and it represents how women were treated by society at the time. The conflict in the story is the way Mrs. Mallard reacts to the news of her husband's death. It is clear she feels as if a burden has been taken away from her, and that she finally can enjoy her life. Her unhappy marriage is the conflict in the story, and it is the ultimate unhappy ending when her husband comes home unharmed and she dies.
             This short story has much conflict, even though it might not be apparent when first reading it. The story takes place during an hour, when a married woman receives the news that her husband has been killed in a train accident. At first, her reaction seems just like the type of reaction any suddenly widowed woman would have. Chopin writes, "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" (Chopin). She is full of grief. Or is she? As the story unfolds, it appears she is not grief-stricken at all, but remarkably happy and thankful. Chopin writes, "She said it over and over under her breath: 'free, free, free!' The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes" (Chopin). Thus, the reader understands that Mrs. Mallard is not mourning her husband at all. Instead, she is suddenly celebrating her own independence. This shows the conflict in the story – her unhappy marriage.
             Chopin's story is a brutally honest look at Victorian society and marriage of the time. Wom...