Gender Readings. Top Ten. Ренц Т.Г - 10 стр.

      Someone was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was
Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly car-
rying his gri p-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of
accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed
at Josephine’s piercing cry; at Richard’s quick motion to screen him
from the view of his wife.
      But Richards was too late.
      When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease
— of joy that kills.
      Comment. The surprise, of course, is too much for Mrs. Mallard.
Does she die of shock, of despair, of joy that kills? We are left with the
impression that Josephine, Richards, and the doctor do not understand
that Mrs. Mallard dies not out of shock at seeing her husband alive, not out
of joy, but out of something like despair. Why does the narrator suggest
that none of them realizes the truth? Some interesting questions are left
unresolved by this ending. Is Mrs. Mallard being punished for harboring a
desire to be free of her husband? Or, is Mrs. Mallard a symbol of repressed
womanhood yearning to be free of male bondage? Does the story tran-
scend the sexual identity of its protagonist? Could we imagine a man in
Mrs. Mallard’s position?
      Our emphasis in this interrupted reading of “The Story of an
Hour” has been to illustrate the active process of thinking while you
read. We have focused largely on issues of response and interpretation.
But we should also consider a few additional questions about the
story’s values.

THE AUTHOR
      Kate Chopin was born in 1851. She was an interpreter of New
Orleans culture. Her real name is Katherine O’Hathery. She married
to Oscar Chopin who pronounced his name as Show-pen but it was
she who showed pen. To her pen belong more than 100 stories. Story-
writing was one of the few ways in which XIX century women could
support themselves. Her greatest work was “Awakening” published in
1899 which fell into obscurity for half a century because of sexual
frankness, sexual and artistic awakening of a young mother. “The
Story of an Hour” is one of the most interesting stories. The com-
ments do not so much interpret the story as illustrate the act of
reading; they represent the kinds of observations, inferences, and


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