The story of an hour is a dramatic destiny of Mrs. Mallard. The title of the story speaks for itself. The story begins with introduction of main characters to the reader and with description of key events. Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble and her sister Josephine, her husband's friend Richard did their best to break to Mrs. Mallard as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.
The first passage appears to be exposition, 'cause it contains a short presentation of time, place and characters of the story. Besides, from the very beginning the absence of Mrs. Mallard's name draws our attention.
Further, the author describes Mrs. Mallard's state, how she accepted the news. He writes: "She didn't hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance". So this makes us think that she didn't accept her husband's death as a fact, but realized its significance for her, perhaps she imagined her further life without her husband, she started thinking of the way her life would change.
"There stood, facing the open window..." There's a slight hint in this sentence, that those changes will be closely connected with the improvement of her life and "the open window" the description of awakened nature in spring suggest it.
Here we should admit the beauty of the language the author uses. "The delicious breath of rain... There were patches of blue sky..." The epithet and metaphor are employed for the expressiveness while describing nature.
The decisive moment comes when ... whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "Free, free, free!" It's the climax of the story. The metaphor "escape" reveals Mrs. Mallard's state. She was unconscious of her dream to be free. Every inch of her body wished that freedom and now she realized it. She was even glad that her husband died.
But the oxymoron "a monstrous joy" suggests that her reaction was abnormal. She was unhappy in her family life. Her husband "never looked save with love upon her. And she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely...she would live for herself..."
The antithesis in the sentence "And yet she had loved him - sometimes. Often she had not." makes us arrive at a definite conclusion that all her love towards her husband was just an illusion. But still in spite of all this she shouldn't react in this way, it wasn't correct. She was too joyful. The metaphor "she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window", the climax "spring days and summer days and all sorts of days"; the epithet "feverish triumph in her eyes" are employed to emphasize her state and unnatural behaviour.
The denouement isn't less unexpected than Mrs. Mallard's reaction. The crucial moment came when Mr. Mallard, which was said to be dead, safe and sound opened the front door. Mrs. Mallard was shocked and died of heart disease. The doctors said that it was joy that killed her. But it wasn't joy, it was despair. All her dreams about free life were broken by her husband and she couldn't live with him any more. She hoped that she had got rid of him, that the destiny made her a present and all her dull life was very far. And when her husband ruined all this she couldn't forgive him. For just an hour she was born again, lived in the world of her dreams and died. She wanted freedom and reached it, but was dead.
A number of messages are conveyed in this story. A human being is born to be free, but he couldn't just rely on destiny and wait for freedom, he must fight for it and then he'll deserve that freedom.
It's a sin to be glad for somebody's death, and one will be punished for it. It is quite difficult to forgive a man, but one should do his best to forgive and give a man another chance.
