"The Story of an Hour"

Imagine living the life of a woman that was just notified that her husband had just died in a car accident. In the short story “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, you would expect the main character, Mrs. Mallard, to be very depressed. Un fortunately, this was not the case. In this story there was load of symbolism that connect with many different things. Symbolism takes a huge toll in this story.
The first piece of symbolism that was noticed is when Mrs. Mallard ran up the stairs when she found out her husband was dead. She opens the window and sees a rainy spring day with patches of blue skies. A rainy day is a symbol of a new life. Her husband is dead and she was able to start her life off fresh. She whispers “Free, free, free!”. Mrs. Mallard was finally free of her husband. She was happy.
Although the upper level of the house was good, the lower level was bad. It started out when she found out her husband died on the lower level, she thought it was a horrible thing until she got to the upper level when she figured out that this couldn’t be so bad after all. When Josephine came back down stairs. Her husband, Mr. Mallard walked through the door. When she discovered that he was still alive, yet far from the accident. Figuring this out, Mrs. Mallard fell to the floor and died of a heart attack. In the story, the doctor said it was because she was shocked that her husband was still alive, she was overfilled with joy. This could possibly be because she was shocked that he was still alive but not in a good way. This also follows when she came down the stairs , she is confronted with bad things. What would of happened if she went back up the stairs?
Another piece of symbolism that was noticed was their last name, Mallard. When you look up Mallard a duck comes up, the Mallard duck. If you read the information about it says that a Mallard duck has its partner for life. It never leaves it unless death occurs. This relates to Mr. and Mrs. Mallard because it seems that she can never get away from him. Like her last name, and the duck, she will always have her partner for life unless death occurs.
As you can see, there is not only lots of symbolism in this book, but there is sure to be symbolism in others. If you are reading a book, look up what their name, or last name means, or try to figure out what some things mean. Maybe you will find something interesting or something that relates to your story.