“The Story of an Hour” time and place
The story is set in the late nineteenth century in the Mallard residence, the home of Brently and Louise Mallard. More about the location is not specified.
“The Story of an Hour” themes
Readers and scholars often focus on the idea of freedom in “The Story of an Hour,” on selfhood, self-fulfillment, the meaning of love, or what Chopin calls the “possession of self-assertion.” There are further details in what critics and scholars say and in the questions and answers below. And you can read about finding themes in Kate Chopin’s stories and novels on the Themes page of this site.
When Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” was written and published
It was written on April 19, 1894, and first published in Vogue on December 6, 1894, under the title “The Dream of an Hour,” one of nineteen Kate Chopin stories that Vogue published. It was reprinted in St. Louis Life on January 5, 1895. The St. Louis Life version includes several changes in the text. As we explain in the questions and answers section of this page, it includes the word “her.”
You can find out when Kate Chopin wrote each of her short stories and when and where each was first published.
What critics and scholars say about “The Story of an Hour”
A great deal has been written about this story for many years. Some representative comments:
The story is “one of feminism’s sacred texts,” Susan Cahill writing in 1975, when readers were first discovering Kate Chopin.
“Love has been, for Louise and others, the primary purpose of life, but through her new perspective, Louise comprehends that ‘love, the unsolved mystery’ counts for very little. . . . Love is not a substitute for selfhood; indeed, selfhood is love’s precondition.” Barbara C. Ewell
“Mrs. Mallard will grieve for the husband who had loved her but will eventually revel in the ‘monstrous joy’ of self-fulfillment, beyond ideological strictures and the repressive effects of love.” Mary Papke
Kate Chopin “was a life-long connoisseur of rickety marriages, and all her wisdom is on display in her piercing analysis of this thoroughly average one.” Christopher Benfey
“In the mid- to late 1890s, Vogue was the place where Chopin published her most daring and surprising stories [‘The Story of an Hour’ and eighteen others]. . . . Because she had Vogue as a market—and a well-paying one—Kate Chopin wrote the critical, ironic, brilliant stories about women for which she is known today. Alone among magazines of the 1890s, Vogue published fearless and truthful portrayals of women’s lives.” Emily Toth
Her husband’s death forces Louise to reconcile her “inside” and “outside” consciousness—a female double consciousness within Louise’s thoughts. Though constrained by biological determinism, social conditioning, and marriage, Louise reclaims her own life—but at a price. Her death is the result of the complications in uniting both halves of her world. Angelyn Mitchell
Louise Mallard’s death isn’t caused by her joy at seeing her husband’s return or by her sudden realization that his death has granted her autonomy. She dies as a result of the strain she is under. The irony of her death is that even if her sudden epiphany is freeing, her autonomy is empty, because she has no place in society. Mark Cunningham
Louise’s death is the culmination of her being “an immature and shallow egotist,” Lawrence Berkove says. He focuses on the scene in Louise’s bedroom and points out how unrealistic her notion of love is. Her death, he writes, is the only place that will offer her the absolute freedom she desires.
“This astonishing story strongly indicates that the sudden success which [the publication in 1894 of] Bayou Folk brought Kate Chopin was of crucial importance in the author’s own self-fulfillment. It gave her a certain release from what she evidently felt as repression or frustration, thereby freeing forces that had lain dormant in her. It is highly significant that she wrote ‘The Story of an Hour,’ an extreme example of the theme of self-assertion, at the exact moment when the first reviews of the book had both satisfied and increased her secret ambitions.” Per Seyersted
You can search the titles in our extensive databases of books and articles for more information about this short story—information in English, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.