When I first started to read the short story "The story of an Hour", by Kate Chopin, I had the impression that it was a story of a poor widow whom life is ruined by the tragic death of her husband. After the class discussion and the revising I have done on the story, I must come to the conclusion that the story is about something more deeply then my first thoughts.
             When I first have read the assignment at home, I had some mixed feeling about the story. I knew that there was something that I was missing. I could not put together why she was feeling so good about something that seemed so bad. It started in paragraph three, in the first sentence. They indicate that she did not hear the news as other women have. Maybe because of her heart problems, it was good news to her and not the others. When they said that her heart was afflicted that was the key. I did not pick up on that until we had the class discussion on the story.
             Her reaction to the news was very strange. She did not react the way most of us would. I do not think that she was ever putting on a show for the others. I only state this because she is the same way when she is in the room by herself. On page five she says that it feels like it is a new life. She is also bringing up spring and the flowers. This is a way of the writer trying to tell the reader something. The writer is giving us the impression now that her husband is no longer in her life she is free. She even says the word free three times. Advisedly she is feeling a sense of freedom now that her husband is gone. A great example to back that up is something a classmate brought up in the discussion, he reminded us of what time era this all happened. In this time era women had no rights and were property. Now everything starts to make sense. ...