Stephen Thatcher
Edna Perkins
ENC-1102
25 August 2013
The Story of An Hour Throughout The Story of An Hour the reader is given multiple impressions of Mrs. Mallard. In the beginning she is portrayed to have a very weak heart both literally and figuratively. This heart is put to the test throughout the entirety of the story. In the beginning her sister tries to tell her gently that her husband is on a list of dead people. She immediately shows signs of depression and physical pain or discomfort. Crying, unwilling to see anybody, and unwilling to move. Then she seems to overcome this by constantly saying “free, free, free,” as if she was being freed from sort of prison and envision running “running riot along those days ahead of her”. Then she dies of shock literally when her husband open the door.

Her joy is and is not monstrous the reader needs more background on the person to make this decision with any kind of accuracy. Was she abused? Was she at all happy with her relationship or was it all her wishing for him to leave or die? Or was she just a free spirit that longed to not be constrained by a relationship so young? The writer of this small essay has come from an abusive household where it is foreseeable that a person would feel free do to the loss of another human being.

The writer of this small essay considers the story formula fiction because most stories in the 1800’s were very dark and this pretense helps the reader form the prediction that