The story of an hour is an impressive masterpiece that appeals to the emotions and the mind of the audience because every word in this short story has a lot of sense and deep meaning. The main character in the book is Mrs. Mallard who is lucky to experience the happiness of liberty which is a rare thing. At the exposition, Mrs. Mallard’s Husband dies and the news of her death is brought to her very subtly because of the fear that it might aggravate her illness. However, contrary to the expectations of the reader, the news does not affect her in any way. The author makes many omissions in the exposition to create a missing link whereby the reader manages to understand everything at the end. The author develops the main character subtly and avoids being distracted by too much action and dialogue. The main intention is to hide some details from the reader who discovers them at the end of the story.
Dialogue and action give the reader the power to carry out introspective analysis that may help in understanding the character beforehand. Dialogue and action bring the characters closer to the reader in quite a revealing way. The author did not want to make revelations until the end of the falling action. The situation the main character is in makes her not be deeply affected by the news of the death of her husband.
“She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment” (p. 788). This is contrary to the expectation of the reader who expects the woman to be emotionally affected by the death. It is only afterward that she comes to realize that death means much to her and she becomes emotional.
When she finally retreats to her room, she undergoes a Catharsis and experiences a liberal feeling that is somehow disturbing. This reaction makes the character assume the role of an antagonist because she goes against the expectations of the reader and the grain of the plot. She also becomes a protagonist because this reaction is later exposed in the story as the one that set the stage for her happy ending.
The conflict in the story is brought about by the reaction of the main character towards the news of the death. People are trying to break the news so subtly to avoid hurting her further but in the real sense, she feels liberated by the news. It is important to note that the woman was not happy with her man whom she would have divorced earlier if the society did not frown upon widows. The death of her husband rids her of someone she didn’t even desire.
The climax of the story comes when the husband reappears and the wife dies upon seeing him. This is the part that turns the story around because questions emerge about the cause of her death. Some students find it hard understanding the ending of this book especially if they have not figured out the conflict. A keen reader will notice that the main character does not die because of being overjoyed after seeing her husband who had been presumed dead; she dies because that was the only way to gain freedom from her husband. She would have chosen to die than live under her domineering husband again. The liberation she gets in death has been foreshadowed in the exposition where she gets liberated by the death of the husband only for the ending to reveal that she is liberated by her own death.