1、The Story of an HourBy Kate Chopin1 Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husbands death.2 It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing.
2、Her husbands friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallards name leading the list of “killed”. He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and
3、had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.3 She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sisters arms. When the storm of gri
4、ef had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.4 There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.5 She could see in the open sq
5、uare before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering
6、in the eaves.6 There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.7 She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook he
7、r, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.8 She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was
8、 not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.9 There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through
9、 the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.10 Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will - as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.11 When
10、she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood w
11、armed and relaxed every inch of her body.12 She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.13 She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the fac
12、e that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.14 There would be no one to live for during those coming y
13、ears; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it i
14、n that brief moment of illumination.15 And yet she had loved him - sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!16 “Free! Body and so
15、ul free!” she kept whispering.17 Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. “Louise, open the door! I beg, open the door - you will make yourself ill. What are you doing Louise? For heavens sake open the door.”18 “Go away. I am not making mys
16、elf ill.” No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.19 Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had
17、thought with a shudder that life might be long.20 She arose at length and opened the door to her sisters importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sisters waist, and together they descended the stairs. Rich
18、ards stood waiting for them at the bottom.21 Someone was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood
19、 amazed at Josephines piercing cry; at Richards quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.22 But Richards was too late.23 When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease - of joy that kills.(1023 words)About the author:Kate Chopin (February 8, 1850 August 22, 1904) was an Am
20、erican author of short stories and novels, mostly of a Louisiana Creole background. Kate Chopin went beyond Maupassants technique and style and gave her writing a flavor of its own. She had an ability to perceive life and put it down on paper creatively. She put much concentration and emphasis on wo
21、mens lives and their continual struggles to create an identity of their own within the boundaries of the patriarchy. Through her stories, Kate Chopin wrote her own autobiography and documented her surroundings; she lived in a time when her surroundings included the abolitionist movements and the eme
22、rgence of feminism. Her ideas and descriptions were not true word for word, yet there was an element of nonfiction lingering throughout each story.Note:In The Story of an Hour, Mrs. Mallard allows herself time to reflect upon learning of her husbands death. Instead of dreading the lonely years ahead
23、 of her, she stumbles upon another realization all together. “She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome“
